H O L LY W O O D S P O T L I G H T ®

THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO

Everything You
Need to Know
From the Golden
Age to Today HOLY CLASSIC
CHARACTERS,
BATMAN!

SEMINAL STORIES
AND EVENT
SERIES

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INDIES, HORROR,
UNDERGROUND
AND MORE

HOW COMICS
CHANGED
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THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO

 jonesing for
J’onn J’onzz
THE 1980s
48
THE 1970s End of the World Party
Apocalyptic tales and comics go hand

18
12 in dystopian hand

The Bronze Age 50

New writers brought the heroes of Rise of the Teenager
DC and Marvel into the modern era The young heroes of X-Men and Teen

22
Titans helped elevate the industry

Back in Black… Er, Blue 54

Crisis on Infinite Secret Wars
06
Fresh talent knocks the camp out of
Batman and the gang Both DC and Marvel changed their

30
game with the introduction of the
Grab Your Cape! event series

60
From maligned medium to a billion-
dollar biz, discover the history of Sex, Drugs and Character Deaths
comic books Spider-Man and Marvel comics grew
Watchmen and The Dark
08
up in the Bronze Age
Knight Returns
The Golden Age 38 Alan Moore and Frank Miller took the
medium to dark and glorious places
Superman ushered in a wave of Horror with seminal works

66
memorable characters With the lifting of the Comics Code,

12
things get scary again

The Silver Age 42 Indie Revolution

With new marketing options,
Exciting heroes and a changing Groovy Indies underground titles like the Teenage
aesthetic brought new life to the Independent comics hit the scene in Mutant Ninja Turtles made a
Wednesday weeklies the ’70s, shaking things up mainstream splash

4 | Histor y of Comics
 22

THE 1990s 18

74
Catastrophic Collapse
After decades of growth, the biz nearly
went belly-up in the 1990s

78
Origins of Image Comics
Some of Marvel’s biggest stars wanted
more freedom, so they made their own

82
Women in Refrigerators
The industry’s abysmal treatment of the
ladies—and how Gail Simone changed it

THE 2000s Black Panther comes into

his own in the 1970s.

86
Century 21
Social media and diverse voices bring
some freshness to familiar stories

94
How Comics Took Over the World
Every where you turn, you can feel
the industry’s influence

5
TIM BURTON'S BATMAN STARRING
MICHAEL KEATON SPARKED A RENEWED
INTEREST IN THE DARK KNIGHT IN 1989.
 From maligned medium
to a billion-dollar biz,
discover the history
of comic books!

There was a time, not so long ago, that comics were the subject of
ridicule. They were silly, only for kids, and to be disposed of as soon
they were read. In the first few years of their existence, they were
barely acknowledged… until the Super Hero Era began with the
introduction of Superman in 1938. That spawned the Golden Age,
a time when some of today’s most popular heroes were introduced.
Aside from the Man of Steel, there was Batman, Wonder Woman,
Captain America and plenty more. Comics became a sensation, used
to help raise money for the American war effort and read by millions.

But with the end of World War II, comics lost their luster, and by the
early 1950s, they were vilified, blamed for all of society’s ills. In 1954,
a famed psychiatrist named Fredric Wertham even wrote a book about
it, The Seduction of the Innocent, which almost ended the comic book
industry there and then. Superheroes went out of vogue, horror and
sci-fi and romance books became the rage, and the industry seemed to
be slowly dying.

But a few years later came The Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, and the
rise of Marvel Comics, which changed everything. Heroes were
back, though it would be some time before the general public took
them seriously again. That process would be a long one that would
take decades, but it began in 1970, with the dawn of the Bronze Age.
Suddenly, comic books had stakes. Batman was once again the Dark
Knight Detective his creators had conceived him to be. Spider-Man’s
girlfriend was murdered. Things changed, and people noticed.

These days, comic books are not only taken seriously, pop culture is
centered around them. The biggest movies are based on these stories
from the Wednesday weeklies, movie stars are made when actors
put on a cowl or take flight, and the industry that almost folded is now
worth billions and billions of dollars.

7
SUPER START

Batman creator bob Kane with the Dark

Knight and Boy wonder in 1965.
 Superman ushered in a wave of memorable heroes

he very early days

of comics are not
what one might call
terribly memorable.
There were characters
introduced before
1938 who would last,
like Lee Falk’s The
Phantom, but none
had the staying power of Superman.
EARLY MASKED HERO SUPERMAN’S DEBUT
When he made his first appearance,
on the cover of Action Comics #1, in
April 1938, the entire industry was
electrified. This, it soon became clear,
was the purpose of comic books, to
offer escapism to kids (and many
adults) who needed it. The boys, who met in Cleveland published sci-fi magazine, in a story
In this case, the escapism offered when they were 10, were kindred called “The Reign of the Superman.”
came from two Jewish kids from Ohio spirits, with Siegel’s writing talents That character was a bald, telepathic
who needed some of their own. Jerry a perfect match for Shuster’s artistic villain bent on world domination,
Siegel and Joe Shuster teamed up to skills. They graduated from high but what Siegel now had in mind was
create the greatest superhero ever—and school in 1932 and went to work something far more benevolent. “As
began an era that carries all the way to trying to break into the comics world, a high school student,” he told author
the present day. Of course, they didn’t succeeding three years later with Ron Goulart for the 1986 book Ron
realize the impact they were going to issue #6 of Major Malcolm Wheeler- Goulart’s Great History of Comics
have when they first dreamed up the Nicholson’s New Fun comics. In it, Books. “I had crushes on several
Last Son of Krypton. Who could have they debuted the swashbuckling Henri attractive girls who either didn’t know
foreseen such a thing? Especially in the Duval, as well as the supernatural I existed or didn’t care that I existed.
depths of the Great Depression, when crimefighter Doctor Occult. It occurred to me: What if I was real
two young men just wanted to be paid It was around then Siegel returned terrific? What if I had something
to write and draw comic book stories. to a character he’d introduced in a self- special going for me, like jumping over

9
SUPER START

THE GOLDEN AGE OF

COMICS … LAID THE
FOUNDATION FOR THE
ENTIRE SUPERHERO
GENRE, SHAPING IT INTO
WHAT IT IS TODAY.”
COMICAL OPINIONS

DEBUT ISSUE OF BATMAN’S

SOLO TITLE IN 1940

buildings or throwing cars around, or to today’s DC Comics, by editor Vin

something like that? Then maybe they Sullivan, who then commissioned the
would notice me.” duo to write the cover story for the new
Thus was Superman born, from series National was preparing, Action
the mind of a lonely young man Comics #1. As part of the deal, Siegel
who just wanted girls to notice him. and Shuster signed what was then a
Siegel brought the idea to his partner, standard contract, which paid them BATMAN CO-CREATOR BILL FINGER
and after the two collaborated $130 for the perpetual rights to the
on something they called “The character and a commitment to supply
Superman,” they spent four years the publisher with more material and
trying to find a publisher. characters. If that seems like a bum deal A year later, Batman was created by
“Obviously, having him a hero for the creators, that’s because it was, artist Bob Kane, with help from writer
would be infinitely more commercial and it led to numerous lawsuits over the Bill Finger (who tragically never got
than having him a villain,” Siegel ensuing decades, as Siegel and Shuster the credit he deserved). A year after
acknowledged in a 1983 interview. “I were nearly forgotten by an indifferent that, Jack Kirby and Joe Simon came
understand that the comic strip Dr. Fu public, despite their spectacularly up with Captain America.
Manchu ran into all sorts of difficulties famous and lucrative creation. And in 1941, psychologist William
because the main character was a DC Comics ultimately settled with Moulton Marston, using the pen name
villain. And with the example before the estates of both men after their Charles Moulton, dreamed up Wonder
us of Tarzan and other action heroes deaths, but their legacy was more Woman… with the largely uncredited
of fiction who were very successful, than just Clark Kent and Superman. help from his brilliant wife Elizabeth
mainly because people admired them Without the Man of Steel, it would be “Sadie” Holloway as well as his live-in
and looked up to them, it seemed hard to argue that the creation of the lover, Olive Byrne (they were, um,
the sensible thing to do to make The other heroes of the age would have unconventional). A radical feminist,
Superman a hero.” seen the light of day. Superman was Marston believed the world would
Eventually, the pair’s creation was the trailblazer, and he established both be better if run by women, famously
discovered in a pile of ideas submitted the desire for comic book superheroes saying of the Amazon goddess he
to National Publications, the precursor and the possibilities. created and originally called Supremea

10 | H i s t o r y o f C o m i c s
 SIEGEL AND SHUSTER WITH THEIR MAN OF STEEL

SUPERMAN CREATORS JERRY

SIEGEL AND JOE SHUSTER'S
EARLY WORK IN 1934

the Wonder Woman: “It’s smart to be to comic books as the root of all evil
strong … but it’s sissified, according and the primary source of juvenile
to exclusively masculine rules, to delinquency and the loss of societal
be tender, loving, affectionate, and morals. The comic book industry
alluring. … The obvious remedy is to responded by shifting to decidedly
create a feminine character with all non-superheroic subject matter, and WONDER WOMAN'S
the strength of Superman, plus all the still Superman endured. FIRST COVER IN 1942
allure of a good and beautiful woman.” But even the Big Blue Boy Scout
To bring Wonder Woman (aka couldn’t withstand the science-
Diana) to life, Marston brought on fiction bent that the comic book
H.G. Peter, a longtime acquaintance, industry took on as the Golden In the comics world, the line of
to do the drawing and suggested he Age came to an end. Throughout demarcation is widely accepted to be
use the “Varga girls,” pinup drawings the 1950s, as more and more October 1956, with the publication
by Alberto Vargas that appeared every superheroes vanished—the Justice of Showcase #4, featuring a brand
month in Esquire, as inspiration. Society of America, so enormously new version of The Flash. This one
Wonder Woman (and beau Steve popular throughout the 1940s, was a police scientist named Barry
Trevor) first appeared in All Star disappeared in 1951 and would Allen, who had been granted the gift
Comics #8, and Marston wrote be absent from newsstands for a of superhuman speed after a bolt of
Wonder Woman exclusively until his decade—the heroes who survived lightning struck a wall of chemicals
death from cancer in 1947. saw many of their adventures in his lab, spilling them on him. Here
Throughout World War II, comics leaning that way. Superman was was an actual scientist as superhero,
were enormously popular, but that no exception, as he faced off with he would soon be followed by more
waned with the war’s end. Superman more aliens, other dimensional inhabitants of the age: a test pilot,
retained some of his stature, thanks figures and otherwise weird and astronauts, a green-skinned alien, more
to the 1951 premiere of the TV series wild adversaries. scientists and a brilliant teenager with a
The Adventures of Superman, even Interestingly, it was that eye toward particular proclivity toward arachnids,
as Dr. Fredric Wertham’s 1954 book sci-fi which brought an end to the among a host of others in what would
Seduction of the Innocent pointed Golden Age and began its successor. become a brand new age of Silver.

11
FRESH FACES

J’ONN J’ONZZ

ith the
introduc-
tion of a
flashy new
hero came
a flashy
new era,
one that
would go
further in defining the genre than its
predecessor. The Silver Age began
when Barry Allen aka The Flash ran
off the pages of Showcase #4.
As other novel heroes were
introduced to an eager public,
existing heroes adapted to the new
vibe. Superman is a perfect example:
Though his stories were influenced by
the TV show that had aired through
the 1950s, his adventures also now
became more science fiction-based. It
was a trend that would carry over into
the 1960s and beyond.
DC Comics editor Mort Weisinger
tasked now-legendary writer Otto
Binder with creating a new continuity BARRY ALLEN MAKES HIS COMICS DEBUT IN 1956.
for the Man of Steel, without actually
creating a new continuity. Binder

12 | H i s t o r y o f C o m i c s
 CLARK ON CANDID CAMERA

STAN LEE HAD A HAND IN CREATING ALMOST

HAL JORDAN AS GREEN LANTERN EVERY CHARACTER IN THE MARVEL UNIVERSE.

used a storytelling conceit wherein Part of that was responding to a The changing times also brought a
he told “imaginary” stories that hungry public. Readers demanded host of new heroes with a current spin.
expanded who the character was and that DC create a female counterpart There was Green Lantern Hal Jordan,
what he could do, but did so with tales to Superman, and thus was born his a test pilot who found immense power
that didn’t really count, because they cousin, another survivor of Krypton, through a ring from another planet.
weren’t meant to actually change the Supergirl. Another part was focusing The Challengers of the Unknown were
character. In this way, the creators more on the “man” and less on the a mix of adventurers that included a
could have their cake and eat it too. “steel” of the Man of Steel. scientist and a professional boxer. As
Still, these stories revitalized Supes, “I enjoyed surprising the readers, the space age was beginning in the real
drawing in readers and modernizing a giving them something new,” world, so was it being echoed in the
hero that was stuck in a different era. Weisinger told Lillian. “Which is pages of comic books. Perhaps the best
In a 1975 interview with Guy H. why I introduced live personalities new DC character of the time (and
Lillian III, Weisinger explained: … real people … into the pages of still, all these years later, one of the
“When I took over Superman, a friend Superman. I had a story in which most underrated) was J’onn J’onzz, the
of mine told me that these characters, Superman appeared on This Is Your Martian Manhunter, a refugee from
superheroes, were cycle things that Life with Ralph Edwards, one where an alternate version of Mars brought
‘can't last for more than three or four he got together with Candid Camera’s to Earth by a scientist named Dr. Saul
years.’ It became a challenge for me Allen Funt, and one based on the fact Erdel, who dies when his experimental
...to prevent Superman from being that Steve Allen looked a little bit like teleportation beam brings J’onn into
just a fad.” Clark Kent.” his lab.

13
FRESH FACES

“Stan didn’t know what a mutation

was,” Kirby said. “I was studying that
kind of stuff all the time. I would
spot it in the newspapers and science
magazines. … I was a student of
science fiction, and I began to make
up my own story patterns, my own
INTRODUCED IN 1960, THE JLA REMAINS ONE type of people. Stan Lee doesn’t think
OF COMICS’ MOST POPULAR SUPER TEAMS. the way I do. … If I drew a war story, it
would be two guys caught in the war.
The Fantastic Four to me are people
who were in a jam—suddenly you find
yourself invisible, suddenly you find
yourself flexible.”
No matter who did what, the book
was an instant sensation, at least
partially because Lee and Kirby made
the Four ordinary people who loved
one another but bickered and fought
and struggled with the everyday
realities of life. Superheroes, they’re
just like us!
It was an aspect of storytelling for
which Marvel became known, and
Comics not only became a major Lee and his collaborators still get a lot
player in the industry, they also of credit for humanizing these meta-
changed comics for good. The Four human characters.
were civilian astronauts who’d been While DC’s heroes during the time
altered by cosmic radiation, giving were often considered less relatable,
them special powers. Lee, a self- the personal lives of Barry Allen and
J’onn J’onzz wasn’t used very much promoter unrivaled in the history Hal Jordan, to name two, were often
at first, but he secured his status when of the industry, always claimed that quite messy, and the Clark Kent side
he became a founding member of the he had imagined the team himself of Superman became more fully
Justice League of America in 1961. and artist Jack Kirby had just drawn fleshed out.
Through his eyes, creators could them, but in a 1990 interview with Marvel was now a key part of
explore the human condition in a way The Comics Journal, Kirby was the industry, and a year after the
different from how they did it with unequivocal. Fantastic Four’s bombastic debut, a
Superman. Though both were aliens,
Superman looked human, whereas
the Martian Manhunter was 6’7” with
green skin.
In 1960, writer Gardner Fox
created the Justice League, picking
up the torch from the long departed
Justice Society (that torch had been
on the ground for nearly 10 years).
The book was almost immediately
one of DC’s best-selling titles, and,
as legend has it, spurred Marvel
Comics publisher Martin Goodman
to push his editor to come up with a
superpowered team for Marvel. That
editor was Stan Lee, and the team
he devised was the Fantastic Four. A RARE PHOTO OF SPIDER-MAN CO-CREATOR STEVE DITKO
With their 1961 creation, Marvel

14 | H i s t o r y o f C o m i c s
 FANTASTIC FOUR CO-CREATOR JACK KIRBY WAS ONE OF THE INDUSTRY’S MOST PROLIFIC ILLUSTRATORS AND HELPED DEVELOP SCORES
OF HEROES, INCLUDING THOR, THE HULK AND THE X-MEN. NO SURPRISE HE’S BEEN DUBBED “THE KING OF COMICS.”

hero who would become one of the in 1998. “Now, if one of our Marvel
most popular on the planet showed characters saw the same monster, I’d

‘FLY-MAN’
up: Spider-Man. Created by Lee and like to think Spider-Man would say,
artist Steve Ditko, this was the most ‘Who’s the nut in the Halloween get-

WASN’T GOOD.
relatable hero of all. A bullied teen, up? I wonder what he’s advertising?’”
Peter Parker happened upon his Lee was viewed with a jaundiced

‘INSECT-MAN’
spider-based powers by chance and eye by some other creators. Ditko said
was someone in whom readers could in a letter to author David Currie,
see themselves.
Lee recognized this years later,
“Stan promoting Marvel titles worked
more [as Stan] promoting himself. DIDN’T SOUND
telling The Chicago Tribune in 1996:
“He’s the one who’s most like me—
He took advantage of an opportunity
and it keeps paying off.” GOOD. AND
nothing ever turns out 100% OK;
he’s got a lot of problems, and he does
Still, there’s no doubt that whatever
he was doing didn’t just help him, ‘MOSQUITO-
things wrong, and I can relate to that.”
Lee also pointed out his
it helped the industry. The creation
of Spider-Man—along with other
MAN’ WAS
perception of the difference between Marvel heroes like Thor, Hulk, Iron
AWFUL. AND
THEN IT HIT ME:
his creations and those of other Man, Doctor Strange, The Wasp, and
publishers, namely humor. “Before many more—brought new readers to

‘SPIDER-MAN.’
Marvel started, any superhero might the comics, including college students
be walking down the street and see a and even, yes, adults.

AND IT WAS AN
12-foot-tall monster coming toward The gains made by the industry
him with purple skin and eight arms throughout the 1960s left it in far
breathing fire, and the character
would have said something like,
better shape than it had been at the
end of the Golden Age, and as the ’60s EPIPHANY.”
‘Oh! There’s a monster from another turned into the ’70s, the industry was
world! I better catch him before ready for another major shift, one that SPIDER-MAN CO-CREATOR STAN
he destroys the city,’” he told NPR would carry it into the present day. LEE TO ET, ABOUT NAMING SPIDEY

15
With the start of a new decade powered ones — had to evolve backgrounds were introduced
came a new dawn in the comic as well. and even given their own titles.
book industry. After the gains Drug use, sex, politics, death— The Bronze Age lasted roughly
that comics had made in the all were suddenly fair game for 15 years or so, and it would
1960s, with heroes like Doctor comic books. The industry grew alter comics immeasurably.
Strange and artist Steve Ditko’s up, but so did the characters Change is not always a good
psychedelic storytelling within it. Heroes who had been thing, but in the case of the
drawing in legions of college introduced as children became comic book industry, the Bronze
students, the industry would see teenagers. Teenagers grew Age and the decade in which
even more changes in the years into their twenties. People most of it took place was what
to come. changed, and characters were it needed to survive in a society
As the real world was evolving, suddenly more well-rounded that was so very different from
the stories and characters— and multifaceted. More heroes the one in which many of the
even otherworldly, super- of varying racial and ethnic classic heroes had been created.
17
COMPLEX CHARACTERS

Black Panther emerges as one of the first

heroes of color at Marvel in the 1970S.

New writers brought the heroes of DC and Marvel into the modern era

18 | H i s t o r y o f C o m i c s
 here is some
disagreement by ARTIST NEAL ADAMS HELPED USHER DARKER, MORE
experts about when, REALISTIC STORIES FOR BATMAN AND GREEN ARROW.
exactly, the Bronze
Age began. Some say it
was when Jack Kirby
left Marvel for DC;
others point to the rise
of younger talent like
Dennis O’Neil, Neal Adams and Mark
Wolfman. As it happens, both events
occurred right around 1970 (a third
possible starting point occurred in
1973—see sidebar on page 21), so that
seems as good a line of demarcation as
any for the end of one era and the start
of an industry-defining new one.
Kirby was the king, the creator of so
much of Marvel’s stable of characters:
not just the Fantastic Four, but also
Black Panther, the Silver Surfer, Thor
and Captain America and so many
others. But working with Stan Lee
wore Kirby down and, by the end of
the ’60s, he’d had enough. He wanted
more money and more credit for his
contributions. DC Comics gave him
both of those things, and allowed him
to create new characters and worlds from those books, my freedom became
that would, in time, become a major more apparent to me, and I felt a hell
part of the overall DC Universe. of a lot better.”
“DC was actually like a haven Kirby’s primary creation at DC was A MORALLY COMPLEX STORY
because I was an individual there,” he the Fourth World, which included FOR THE SILVER SURFER IN 1970
told The Comics Journal in 1990. “I heroes like Mister Miracle—later a
was able to do something under my member of the Justice League—and
own name. In other words, if I wrote, the villainous Darkseid and his home Editor-in-Chief Carmine Infantino
‘Jack Kirby’ wrote it. If I drew, ‘Jack planet of Apokolips. Darkseid would (“There are people in editorial
Kirby’ drew it. And the truth was there, become one of the biggest, deadliest, positions that shouldn’t be there,” he
and I began to write and draw, and I and most overwhelming antagonists told The Comics Journal), Kirby would
felt at last in that continuity. Five decades after return to Marvel, where he would
a sense of his creation, even though he is more create the Eternals.
freedom, relevant now than ever before, most Change was afoot throughout. The
and with people forget that he sprang from first generation of creators, writers and
the sales Kirby’s especially fertile imagination. artists who had begun in the 1940s
rising After having a falling out with then DC and were aging out of the industry

THE YOUNGER CROWD COMING IN WAS MUCH MORE

WRAPPED UP IN THE CHARACTERS. … WE CARED A
LITTLE MORE PASSIONATELY.” WRITER MIKE FRIEDRICH TO BRYAN STROUD
19
COMPLEX CHARACTERS

were now being replaced by younger

writers and artists who grew up as fans I WANTED 1960s (largely due to the TV show)
and returned him to his Dark Knight
of the genre.
Dennis O’Neil, Len Wein, Marv
TO BE MORE Detective roots.
“The comics were very half-
Wolfman, Jim Shooter and Mike
REALISTIC. heartedly following in the footsteps of

PEOPLE MIGHT
Friedrich, just to name five, were all the camp [TV show] because it was
relative kids, in their late teens and having a palpable effect on circulation,”

GET HURT
20s, and all had grown up reading O’Neil said in a 2014 interview with
comics. They brought a new energy 13th Dimension. “I would go into the

SOMETIMES
and storytelling vibe to the characters, most literary bar in Greenwich Village
invigorating them with a youthful flair. on [Wednesday] or Thursday evenings
O’Neil, especially, had his fingerprints
all over some of the major characters OR SOMEBODY and there would be writers and poets
and college professors, all looking at
at DC, starting with an epic run on
Batman he began in 1969. Working MIGHT DIE.” Batman! But when that was over, it
was over. It was like somebody turned
with artist Neal Adams, he took the a switch. And that’s when [editor]
goofy, campy version of Batman that WRITER AND PUBLISHER JAMES Julie [Schwartz] said, in his avuncular
had existed throughout much of the SHOOTER TO BRYAN STROUD way, did I have any ideas for Batman?

THE PERIOD’S 10 MOST IMPORTANT COMICS

10 9 8 7 6
GIANT SIZE DETECTIVE SUPERMAN’S PAL X-MEN #137 CRISIS
X-MEN #1 COMICS #395 JIMMY OLSEN #1 (SEPTEMBER 1980) ON INFINITE
(MAY 1975) (JANUARY 1970) (OCTOBER 1970) The classic EARTHS #1
The introduction The issue that The start of the Dark Phoenix (JANUARY 1985)
of the new X-Men brought Batman Fourth World Saga climaxed The first major,
team that would out of the dark Saga announcing here, as the publishing-line-
become the best days of Jack Kirby’s X-Men try to wide arc that
known. Wolverine campiness. arrival at DC, the protect Jean Grey touched literally
had already been Dennis O’Neil and story covered 59 from punishment every character
introduced (see Neal Adams, in issues in for wiping out a DC owned. After
entry #3), but this their first outing four titles galaxy. It was a more than 40
issue saw the together as (includingThe culmination in years of stories, it
debut of other writer-artist, Forever People, longform consolidated
series mainstays create a story that Mister Miracle and storytelling everything into a
like Storm, will echo down The New Gods). (begun in #101) single continuity.
Colossus and through the These characters that hadn’t been Many more such
Nightcrawler. decades. were built to last. seen ever before. events followed.

20 | H i s t o r y o f C o m i c s
And at that point, I wasn’t going to relevant (see page 22). Marvel, too, Modernity ruled. Realism
be asked to do camp. I was going to took a sharp zag, abandoning the reigned. Sexuality became more
be asked to do anything within the Comics Code that the industry had pronounced. Ethnic characters
bounds of good taste.” used to self-govern its content. The became mainstream. Women found
What came from that was the story pages of Spider-Man, for instance, their necklines plunging, but they
“Secret of the Waiting Graves,” in saw one of Peter Parker’s friends with also were allowed to become adults.
issue #395 of Detective Comics, dated a drug problem (see page 30), even The Fantastic Four’s Sue Storm, for
January 1970 (see sidebar). It was though references to drugs had not instance, went from being Invisible
drawn by Adams and is historically the been allowed since the start of the Girl to Invisible Woman. Same with
shift of the character. “[Longtime DC code. The resulting impressive sales DC’s Hawkgirl, who graduated to
Editor and Publisher] Paul Levitz says let everyone in the industry know that Hawkwoman and joined the Justice
that this was the turning point,” O’Neil they could get away with a lot. That League as a full-fledged member.
continued. “That everything that has Spidey book hit newsstands in May Ultimately, this new freedom would
been done since has been done coming 1971, and just three months later came stick, allowing the industry to evolve
off this story.” a DC story that showed Green Arrow’s with the times. Both major publishers
That wasn’t just the case with sidekick Speedy as a junkie (see page saw massive gains, and told some
Batman; DC’s entire line took a turn 22). The doors were open, and there of the most legendary stories in the
toward the modern and the culturally was no going back. genre’s history.

IT’S NOT EASY TO PICK THE BIGGEST ISSUES OF THE BRONZE AGE, ESPECIALLY SINCE SO MANY
STORIES COVER MORE THAN A SINGLE ISSUE, SO WE LIMITED THE SELECTIONS TO ONE PER TITLE.

5 4 3 2 1
GREEN LUKE CAGE, INCREDIBLE AMAZING BATMAN #251
LANTERN/GREEN HERO FOR HULK #181 SPIDER-MAN #122 (SEPTEMBER 1973)
ARROW #85 HIRE #1 (JULY 1974) (JULY 1973) The return of the
(AUGUST 1971) (MARCH 1972) The introduction The death of truly evil, epically
Green Arrow’s Black Panther of one of the most Spider-Man’s dangerous Joker
sidekick Speedy a and The Falcon beloved girlfriend Gwen tops the list.
junkie? Hooked came first, but characters to ever Stacy is still, After the Clown
on heroin? neither of them appear in comics almost 50 years Prince of Crime
WHAT? This had their own and films later, incredibly had been
O’Neil-Adams book until much qualifies as impactful—the neutered over
entry followed a later. This was the important. Thus, first killing of a the years, O’Neil
similarly themed first time a Black the issue that major character in and Adams’
Spider-Man story hero had an gave the world DC or Marvel. reintroduction of
by three months, eponymous title. Wolverine, the Some scholars the Joker as a
but this one still It wouldn’t last, fast-healing, say it ended the homicidal maniac
carries weight five but the legacy claws-wielding Silver Age, as it would stick
decades later. certainly did. mutant. upped the stakes. forever after.

21
DARKER KNIGHTS

The 2022 blockbuster The Batman

starring Robert Pattinson drew
heavily on the detective aspects of the
character reintroduced in the ’70s.

22 | H i s t o r y o f C o m i c s
 New talent knocks the camp out of Batman and the gang

ike a batarang thrown

into the Gotham City
sky, it all comes back
to Batman. Superman
was the first superhero,
obviously, the one who
got the giant boulder
rolling, but DC was
known as DC because
of the success of Detective Comics,
Bats’ book. Dennis O’Neil’s work on
the Caped Crusader revitalized the
character completely. It also served
as a wake-up call to fans and other
creators alike and allowed the industry
to grow up. Soon, the entire DC line
had taken a turn, and nothing would
be the same.
A DENNY O’NEIL-NEAL ADAMS As noted earlier, when O’Neil
STORY FROM 1970 was first offered the chance to write
Batman, the character was still firmly

23
DARKER KNIGHTS

ADAMS AND O’NEIL GAVE MORE HEFT TO MANY OF BATMAN’S ROGUES, INCLUDING THE JOKER AND TWO-FACE, AND CREATED
FAMED VILLAIN RA’S AL GHUL AND HIS DAUGHTER TALIA (THE EVENTUAL MOTHER OF BRUCE WAYNE’S SON DAMIAN).

entrenched in the world of camp. The which made Schwartz sit up and America knows what Batman should
TV series starring Adam West had take notice. As Adams recalled at the be.” Adams “got rid of the fantasy
wrapped up in 1968, but it was still in Comic-Con panel, writer Bob Haney bullsh*t,” and readers responded.
the forefront of people’s minds. DC altered his scripts to work with Adams’ Adams’ Batman was fresh and dark
art director Carmine Infantino, who style, and suddenly the character and exciting and jumped off the page.
would be promoted to publisher in wasn’t “walking through doors but It was revolutionary, and the higher
1971, was drawing Batman hanging coming through windows.” ups at DC didn’t need X-ray vision to
out in Gotham City during daylight Schwartz brought Adams back see that.
hours, a sort of goofball, running into his office and asked the artist As this was going on, Schwartz went
around in his underwear in the middle what made him think he knew what to O’Neil to inquire about his interest
of rush hour. Around that time, up- the Dark Knight should be. Adams in writing Batman. The young scribe
and-coming artist Neal Adams, who replied, “It’s not just me that knows eagerly agreed, saying it was his plan
had been working on smaller titles what Batman should be—every kid in to “take the character back to May of
for a couple years, asked Editor-in-
Chief Julius Schwartz if he could draw
Batman. Adams recalled this moment
at the 2014 San Diego Comic-Con, and
said that Schwartz kicked the artist out
of his office.
Schwartz knew the main Batman
title was not selling terribly well at
this point, and Detective Comics was
on the verge of cancellation, so he
considered his options. He still wasn’t
ready to hand either title to the young
artist, but he figured a kind of audition
couldn’t hurt, so he asked editor
Murray Boltinoff if the kid could draw
the Batman team book The Brave and
ADAMS HAS SAID HE USED REAL ANATOMY AND FACES
the Bold. Soon, it was the only Bat-
FOR A MORE REALISTIC TAKE ON HIS CHARACTERS.
family title anyone was talking about,

24 | H i s t o r y o f C o m i c s
1939 and do what Bill Finger and Bob
Kane did,” as he recalled at the same
2014 Comic-Con panel.
Inevitably, the paths of the rising
stars collided, thanks to editor and
artist Dick Giordano, who put the two
together on Detective Comics. Their
first issue—#395, January 1970—was
a revelation. This was the vigilante
who’d been introduced three decades
earlier, but updated for a new age.
O’Neil made him a detective again,
and, as Adams said in San Diego,
created “the Batman we still see today.”
This opened the door for all kinds
of innovations. For one, new artists
came on the scene, like Jim Aparo,
who would come to be known as one
of the greatest Bats artists of all time,
drawing the character in hundreds
of issues over the span of 20 years.
According to Adams, “Aparo did the
best job of all.” O’Neil agreed, saying
that “Aparo was the best writer’s artist
I ever worked with” and that Aparo
understood “this is not about pictures;
this is about pictures telling a story.”
Aside from Adams and Aparo,
talents like Mike Grell, Marshall
O’NEIL AND ARTIST CURT SWAN’S “KRYPTONITE
Rogers, Bernie Wrightson and Walt
NEVERMORE!” WITH A COVER BY NEAL ADAMS
Simonson all made a mark, and all
became industry stars. So, for that
matter, did veteran Curt Swan, whose
version of Superman became the titles like The Flash, Justice League proxy, arguing with Green Lantern’s
publisher’s standard. As he told writer and Wonder Woman carried overtly intergalactic police officer.
Wallace Harrington, “I drew him to political messages. Still, O’Neil’s work As O’Neil recalled in Will Jacobs
look like a nice guy, someone you’d is what is best remembered for the and Gerard Jones’ book The Comic
want on your side.” Swan’s version of period—and for good reason. His Book Heroes: “Green Lantern was, in
the Man of Tomorrow was so widely writing pushed boundaries, gave effect a cop. An incorruptible cop, to
accepted, in fact, that DC put the head characters new lives and made readers be sure, with noble intentions, but still
of his Superman on all of Jack Kirby’s think differently about them. a cop, a crypto-fascist.” The series’ run
work drawing the character. Yes, really. The two best examples of this are lasted just 14 issues, and by the end of
O’Neil again was responsible for unquestionably issue #85 of Green it, as the authors note, “Green Arrow
much of the writing innovations— Lantern/Green Arrow, in which he had become a screaming pontificator,
he also wrote a series of Superman made Arrow’s sidekick Speedy a and Green Lantern a whimpering,
stories that lessened the Man of Steel’s heroin addict, and Batman#251, in manic-depressive loser.”
powers and got rid of most of Earth’s which he returned The Joker to his And yet, there was that story about
kryptonite, making him more human insane, homicidal roots. Speedy. It came in the summer of
and more relatable. (Once he was off O’Neil’s overall run on GL/GA is 1971, three months after Marvel did
the title, these were mostly dropped.) considered something of a failure, in a Spider-Man story in which one of
Other writers including Archie retrospect, because his own 1960s Peter Parker’s friends admitted to
Goodwin, David Michelinie, Len Wein radical biases kept him from being having a pill addiction, but this was no
and Mark Evanier were also a part of evenhanded in the debates he staged less revolutionary. It actually caused
the rebirth, as was O’Neil’s protege between the two main characters. problems in-house, as DC was terrified
Mike Friedrich, whose work across Green Arrow served as O’Neil’s of violating the Comics Code. For

25
DARKER KNIGHTS

EVERYTHING NEAL AND I DID WAS IMPLICIT IN BILL

FINGER’S BATMAN STORY ... WHERE BRUCE WAYNE
SEES HIS PARENTS KILLED. “ WRITER DENNIS O’NEIL TO BRYAN STROUD
DC 100 PUBLISHED IN FEBRUARY 1972, COLLECTED
MORE THAN A DOZEN STORIES INCLUDING
BATMAN BATTLING SOME VAMPIRES.

26 | H i s t o r y o f C o m i c s
months, Adams’ provocative cover of to similar Marvel heroes. Whereas everybody can relate to, because I
Speedy injecting himself in front of the Marvel had given the world the Black can’t, and I don’t know any Black
two main characters, just sat there. Panther, the Falcon and Luke Cage guys on the street that can relate to
As Adams recalled on Allen Wright’s aka Power Man, DC’s diversity lagged an African chief. I want a college
Robin Hood website, “[Schwartz] behind. But in 1972, finally, DC broke graduate. I want him to have a
said, ‘We’ll never print this, it won’t its own color barrier. profession. And I want him to be a
pass the Comics Code.’” Adams Hal Jordan had been the DC good, tough guy.”
then went to Marvel and inquired Universe’s Green Lantern since the Stewart was a hit—and had real
about what issues had arisen from Silver Age began in 1956, and another, staying power, eventually becoming
the Spider-Man story. He was told, backup Green Lantern Guy Gardner Green Lantern for a generation
“Nothing. Nothing happened. … first showed up in 1968. In 1972, in of kids who saw the character
Nobody even noticed the Comics Code Green Lantern #87, John Stewart on animated Justice League TV
seal wasn’t on the book.” became Jordan’s backup after Gardner shows—as was Black Lightning, who
It took little time for the publishers was injured, and thus John became came along five years later. Olympic
to meet and slightly relax the Comics
Code, and within a week, Schwartz
told Adams that the book would be
printed after all.
Two years later came another
revelation, the reinvention of the
Clown Prince of Crime, who for years
had been just that: a clown. As O’Neil
told the website 13th Dimension in
2014, “I understand the idea of a scary
clown and that seemed to me a terrific
idea for comics. He had been watered
down, and it works if he is a maniac
and is totally unpredictable. It does
not work if he … steals groceries!”
Adams concurred, telling the
website: “The question is: How do
you bring the Joker back if he’s just
the clown? Of course he never was
‘just the clown’ but let’s push him a
little harder. That was fine for Denny.
… Denny was ready to do a mass
murderer. … I told Denny … ‘Just write
what you have to write.’ He said, ‘I’ll
kill a lot of guys.’ I said, ‘Alright, we’ll SWAN WORKED IN THE INDUSTRY, MOSTLY ON
see. Nobody is going to notice.’ So we SUPERMAN, FROM THE 1950S INTO THE ’80S.
did this story and we got to do all these
little vignettes. The scene of the Joker
in the shark’s mouth. We just got to
do all kinds of stuff. Yet the story was DC’s first Black hero. As with many decathlon star and teacher
very solid. It’s this kind of terrible of the other story and character Jefferson Pierce was created by
re-introduction to the Joker where he advances the publisher had seen writer Tony Isabella and artist Trevor
kills off all his henchmen.” during the decade, this too came from Von Eeden. “I set out to create a very
If that sounds familiar, it’s because O’Neil and Adams. positive character,” Isabella told the
it’s how the movie The Dark Knight In a 2017 interview with Maverick, website Black Girl Nerds in 2018.
opens. Director Christopher Nolan Adams recalled a conversation with “He’s a reluctant hero. He’d rather
would tell Adams that his and O’Neil’s Schwartz that the character had to be a teacher but he has these powers
story was the sequence’s inspiration. be specific, saying, “I don’t want a and he knows they come with a
While the Joker was reintroduced gangbanger who suddenly gets a responsibility to his community.”
to great acclaim, two new characters superpower and turns into a good As the decade progressed,
debuted, offering counterpoints guy. I don’t want an African chief however, not all the changes were

27
DARKER KNIGHTS

for the better. After the success of

the 1978 Superman movie, Clark
50 cents for them, which turned off
readers and sent the publisher into [NEAL
Kent became a TV news anchor. The
Golden Age heroes were separated
a tailspin.
As the 1970s turned into the 1980s,
ADAMS]
into a different reality than the something was needed to reinvigorate
WAS
INFLUENCING
modern ones. Characters were the line, just as O’Neil, Adams, and
watered down again, and continuity the others had done at the start of the

EVERYONE.
became confused, with readers decade. Though there were fits and
never quite sure where a particular starts with new titles that caught fire,

HE WAS A BIG
story might fall in the line’s primary it would take two things to change
continuity. Along those lines, that the company’s fortunes: The first was
continuity itself was fractured, with
different heroes existing on different
a band of teen superheroes, some of
whom were already fan favorites, and INFLUENCE
Earths. It would take several years
for that to be straightened out.
others who were brand new creations
who would become so. The second ON ME.”
Another problem was financial. DC was the biggest event to that point
expanded most of the line’s titles to in comics history, which would truly ARTIST JIM APARO TO
more pages and charged a then-pricey begin a new era. COMIC BOOK ARTIST

JOHN STEWART JOINED HAL JORDAN

IN THE LANTERN CORPS IN 1971. BLACK LIGHTING GOT HIS FIRST COVER IN APRIL 1977.

28 | H i s t o r y o f C o m i c s
 Fans of all
genders missed
the powerful
amazon

DIANA'S MOD YEARS WONDER WOMAN COVER OF MS.

A FEMINIST GLORIA STEINEM

RE-POWERS
WONDER WOMAN
NOT EVERYTHING DENNIS O’NEIL fashion store owner. In these Wonder Woman graced the cover of
touched turned to gold. Aside from stories,Diana studied under a blind Gloria Steinem’s Ms. magazine, and
the Green Lantern/Green Arrow, martial arts master named I Ching. an essay inside expressed frustration
there was also his groan-worthy Sales plummeted. at Diana’s current state. DC acted.
take on the world’s most famous Just as with GL/GA, O’Neil had had “I remember getting a call from
female hero. In Wonder Woman the best of intentions, but as he told one of the chief executives looking
#178, a tearful Diana relinquishes journalist Bryan Stroud in 2018, “I after Wonder Woman,” Steinem told
her powers and connection to the thought I was serving the cause of NPR in 2019. “He said, ‘OK, OK. She’s
Amazons to remain in the “World of feminism by making this woman got all her magical powers back. She
Man” and help Steve Trevor. She self-made and then I immediately can fly. She has a magic lasso that
even ditches her iconic costume in undercut that by having her have a makes people tell the truth…. Now
favor of trendy tunics and a male martial arts teacher. Then I will you leave me alone?’”
bombshell blowout. compounded that sin by naming the O’Neil eventually understood,
“For the first time I’m faced with teacher after one of the five classic telling Stroud, “My heart was pure,
practical problems like finding a books in Chinese culture, thereby but I now see Steinem’s point. To
place to live and earning money kind of making fun of it.” take the one really powerful
for food,” Diana laments in the As Wonder Woman was created by [female] character in the comics
issue. She solves the dilemma by a feminist, it’s fitting it took another pantheon and take away her powers
becoming a private investigator and to get her powers back. In 1972, was really not serving … feminism.”

29
MARVEL-OUS

the Amazing Spider-Man show

brought new readers to
spidey’s web from 1977 to ’79.

Spider-Man and Marvel Comics grew up in the Bronze Age

30 | H i s t o r y o f C o m i c s
SPIDER-MAN TANGLES WITH THE PUNISHER IN 1977. IRON MAN
BEGAN HIS STRUGGLES WITH ADDICTION IN THE BRONZE AGE.

hile the
introduc-
tion of BRUCE GOT CONTROL OVER HIS RAGE IN 1983.
charac-
ters like
Spider-
Man
and the
Fantas-
tic Four and, well, pretty much the
entire Marvel Universe as we know it
happened during the Silver Age, those

I NEVER
characters grew up in the Bronze
Age, and that began in 1971. That

THOUGHT
was when Peter Parker’s friend Harry
Osborn, son of the Green Goblin
himself, was revealed to have a drug
addiction. ABOUT THE
This was the issue that led to the
changing of the Comics Code the CODE WHEN I
industry had been using to police
itself since the 1950s, and it was at WAS WRITING …
the behest of the National Institutes
of Health that Stan Lee wrote and I NEVER
published the Harry Osborn story.
WANTED TO
DO ANYTHING
The fact that drug use was essentially
forbidden under the rules of the

THAT WAS …
code was off-putting, sure, but the
government support gave Marvel

TOO VIOLENT OR
leeway to run with it. The full tale,
which also featured the return of
Osborn’s father, ran in The Amazing
Spider-Man #96, #97 and #98.
“I said, ‘Screw it’ and just took the
TOO SEXY.”
Code seal off for those three issues,” STAN LEE TO ROY THOMAS

31
MARVEL-OUS

WOLVERINE
CLAWS HIS
WAY TO THE TOP
He was a nothing with X-Men #94, which
character who showed picked up immediately
up in an otherwise after Wein’s Giant Size
nondescript issue of The #1, and it was under his
Incredible Hulk in 1974. watch that Wolverine,
Wolverine was small, aka Logan, became a
wore blue and yellow global sensation.
spandex, and had “I don’t know what
retractable claws made makes Logan popular
of the hardest substance today with the audience,
known to the Marvel but I know what makes HUGH JACKMAN HAS PLAYED WOLVERINE ON THE BIG SCREEN SINCE
Universe, adamantium. him popular with me,” 2000; HIS CLAWS WILL COME OUT AGAIN IN 2024’S DEADPOOL 3.
He battles with the Hulk, Claremont said to the
is knocked out twice, and website Big Comic Page
then, after a brief in 2018. “He’s the, for
appearance in the next want of a better phrase, Lee told colleague and protege Roy
issue, disappears. There ‘conscience of the team.’ Thomas in an interview published on
was no reason to believe He epitomized the the TwoMorrows’ Comic Book Artist
we would ever see struggle that all of them website. “Then we went back to the
him again. face from Magneto down Code again. I never thought about
But then, a year later, to the youngest of the the Code when I was writing a story,
writer Len Wein, who had New Mutants between because basically I never wanted to
written that Hulk story, right and wrong, good do anything that was to my mind too
revamped the X-Men in and evil, responsibility violent or too sexy. I was aware that
Giant Size X-Men #1, in and indulgence. My young people were reading these
which he introduced a vision of him is basically books, and had there not been a Code,
whole new team of an ongoing challenge I don’t think that I would have done
mutants, including this and confrontation the stories any differently.”
little Canadian guy with between the yin of the The reaction was varied. Some
the claws and the power raw animal emotion saluted the move, and fans certainly
to heal very, very quickly. epitomized by loved it, but the competition was,
Over time, Wolverine Sabertooth, and the yang at the very least, nonplussed. Three
would become arguably of the people I see as his months before DC would put out
the most popular hero in parents who are not the its own drug issue featuring Green
comics history, and the ones that were printed in Arrow’s sidekick Speedy on heroin,
actor who played him on the comic, one of whom DC publisher Carmine Infantino was
the big screen, Hugh for better or for worse is quoted in The New York Times about
Jackman, would become an angel legitimately. He the three issues, saying, “You know
a star doing so. Writer is the best of beings and that I will not in any shape or form
Chris Claremont wrote the worst of beings in one put out a comic magazine without the
X-Men books for more person struggling to find proper authorities scrutinizing it so
than 16 years, starting a balance.” that it does not do any harm, not only
 CAPTAIN MARVEL GOT A 1973 REVAMP UNDER WRITER AND PUBLISHER JIM STARLIN, WHILE NEWCOMERS DAREDEVIL
AND THE X-MEN WERE HOT PROPERTIES TO THE MARVEL COMICS UNIVERSE IN ’70S AND EARLY ’80S.

to the industry but also to the children Blaxploitation genre, and with it, the
who read it. Until such a time, I will freedom to put a man of color on the
not bring out a drug book.” cover of his own title.
Famous last words. Though, to be Created by Roy Thomas, writer
fair, the code did undergo some small Archie Goodwin and artists George

ANYTIME I’M
changes by the time DC’s book saw Tuska and John Romita Sr., Luke
the light of day. Cage was an innocent man convicted

ASSIGNED …
Even more barriers fell in the of a crime he didn’t commit who
ensuing years. In 1972, the first comic underwent human experimentation

A CHARACTER,
book appeared with a Black character that gave him heightened strength
not just leading the story, but also and bulletproof skin. As Thomas
with his name in the title, and a year
after that, Marvel courted even more
recalled in an interview with
American Comic Book Chronicles, I TRY TO DO
controversy with the death of Spider-
Man’s girlfriend, Gwen Stacy (some
“Stan didn’t want a typical superhero
name for the comic, but wanted him SOMETHING
argue this was the real start of the
Bronze Age).
to want to make a paying career of
crime-busting, and was looking for a NEW WITH
First, the birth of Luke Cage: Hero
for Hire. Marvel had been taking
title. I had some months ago written
an Avengers issue called ‘Heroes for
THEM … THAT
criticism for several years about the Hire,’ so I suggested Hero for Hire.
SHOWS A
DIFFERENT
lack of Black characters, with the Stan also wanted a good one-word
first and most famous one, Black name for him that was atypical, and I

ASPECT
Panther, often referred to as a token. suggested ‘Cage.’”
Lee was sensitive to that kind of The series wasn’t a huge hit, but its

OF THEIR
critique and wanted to put out a book importance went far beyond simple
with T’Challa as the lead, but the sales. It would lead to the creation
fact that the Black Panther shared
a name with the real-life activist
of more characters of color and
opened the door to more storytelling PERSONALITY .”
organization put the kibosh on that. innovation.
But then, in 1971, the movie Shaft was The same year Hero for Hire WRITER DAVID MICHELINIE TO
a huge hit, leading to the rise of the premiered, Lee stopped writing the MAGAZINES AND MONSTERS

33
MARVEL-OUS

A GOVERNMENT AGENCY … SENT STAN [LEE] A

LETTER, ASKING HIM … TO PUT FORTH THE MESSAGE
THAT DRUGS ARE BAD FOR KIDS.” ARTIST JOHN ROMITA SR. TO TWOMORROWS
Spider-Man book and was replaced
by up-and-comer Gerry Conway.
Looking to shake things up, the
editorial team made the decision that
someone close to Peter Parker had to
die. The initial choice was his Aunt
May, but artist and co-plotter John
Romita Sr. suggested Gwen Stacy.
“She was a nonentity, a pretty
face,” he said in Sean Howe’s 2012
book, Marvel Comics: The Untold
Story. “It made no sense to me that
Peter Parker would end up with a
babe like that who had no problems.
Only a damaged person would end
up with a damaged guy like Peter
Parker. And Gwen Stacy was perfect.
… I think Gwen was simply Stan
replicating his wife, just like [the
Fantastic Four’s Invisible Woman]
Sue Storm was a replication of his
wife. … The amazing thing was that
he created a character like Mary
Jane Watson, who was probably the
most interesting female character in
comics, and he never used her to the
extent that he could have. Instead
of Peter Parker’s girlfriend, he made
her Peter Parker’s best friend’s
girlfriend. Which is so wrong, and so
stupid, and such a waste. So killing
Gwen was a totally logical if not
inevitable choice.”
Maybe, but that didn’t mean fans
appreciated it. After Conway, Romita,
and artist Gil Kane plotted it all out
and got Lee’s approval—“Once he
MIKE COLTER PORTRAYED LUKE CAGE IN THE stopped writing a given comic he
CHARACTER’S EPONYMOUS NETFLIX SERIES. stopped thinking about it,” Conway
recalled to Howe, explaining how Lee
allowed the storyline to happen—the
arc ran in The Amazing Spider-Man
#122, and when it hit the newsstands,
it was like a bomb went off. Lee
discovered this firsthand when he
went to speak at college campuses
and found kids yelling at him. Of Englehart and Starlin would drop work kept the book going for over 100
course, Lee being Lee, he took no acid, go to the movies, go for long issues, and of course led to the popular
responsibility. walks and plot out the stories, but Marvel movie, released in 2021.
“He basically threw me to the while Starlin was trying to come up As the decade came to an end,
wolves,” Conway recalled to Howe. with the character’s look, he drew a the Marvel Universe saw two major
“This was the first time a beloved generic, decidedly non-Asian face events. The first was wunderkind
character had been killed off in on the costume designs. When Lee writer-artist Frank Miller taking over
comics. I couldn’t go to conventions.” saw that, he insisted that this would the storytelling for Daredevil, aka
No matter the reason, a line had be the character’s look. Add in the Matthew Murdock, a blind lawyer
been crossed that could never be unfortunate yellow skin the character whose other senses are extremely
uncrossed, and that was a good thing. had because of the coloring process, heightened. Miller’s art was gorgeous,
Innovation was often slow in coming and the reaction was not what Marvel but more than that, he told rich,
to comics, but when it came, it usually had intended. multilayered stories that enthralled
tended to stick. As Starlin recalled to Howe, “By readers. He turned the villainous
Another big move? The well- the time we got done with it, I had a Bullseye into a monster and a true
intentioned if somewhat poorly friend who was [Asian] who looked enemy for the main character, while
received Shang-Chi, Master of Kung at it—he told me flat out he found also introducing immediate fan
Fu. Writer Steve Englehart and the thing insulting. That was enough favorite Elektra, who would fall in
writer-artist Jim Starlin were huge for me.” Starlin soon left the book, love with Murdock and ultimately
fans of the TV series Kung Fu and and Lee, looking to capitalize on the wind up one of Bullseye’s victims.
wanted to adapt it to comics. When popularity of kung fu films, insisted After the death of Gwen Stacy,
they learned that DC owned the that the comic become wall-to-wall Electra’s was the most traumatic
rights, Shang-Chi was born. action and scrap its philosophical and heartbreaking death of a Marvel
“I was already doing Doctor bent. Not surprisingly, Englehart character until Jean Grey’s demise
Strange,” Englehart told author soon followed Starlin out the door. a year later (more about that on
Sean Howe in Marvel Comics: The But then writer Doug Moench page 52). Miller revolutionized
Untold Story, “which represented the took over and was able to work Daredevil and made him an A-lister
Western mystical philosophy. I really within the prescribed framework to with a 34-issue run. He would
saw Shang-Chi as a chance to do the combine action and philosophy. Even return for another, even more
Eastern mystical philosophy, albeit if he did continue some of the more legendary, six-issue story a few years
with a more action-oriented hero unfortunate stereotypes that had been later, known as Born Again, which
than Doctor Strange.” present from the beginning, Moench’s acted as something of a reboot for

WHILE THE SHANG-CHI COMICS OF THE ’70S WERE SOMEWHAT CULTURALLY INSENSITIVE, THE SERIES SERVED AS THE STARTING POINT
FOR THE 2021 BLOCKBUSTER SHANG-CHI AND THE LEGEND OF THE TEN RINGS STARRING SIMU LIU HAS THE TITULAR HERO.

35
MARVEL-OUS

The Spider-Man movies

have used many elements
from the bronze age.

the character. Four decades later,

Daredevil remains one of the most
popular in the Marvel Universe.
The other event was courtesy of
writer David Michelinie, who left
DC for Marvel and was immediately
given the Iron Man title. He promptly
turned Tony Stark into an alcoholic. It
was another seismic move that broke
more taboos. As he recalled to the
website The Comic Lounge in 2020,
“I had never read an Iron Man story
before that, so the first thing I did was
read the last six issues before my first
one was due. I saw a guy, Tony Stark,
whose world was falling apart: There
was a threatened hostile takeover
of his company, the government
was trying to regulate his team (the
BEN AFFLECK AND FUTURE WIFE JENNIFER GARNER STARRED AS Avengers), and his love life was in
DAREDEVIL AND ELEKTRA IN A VERY MEH-RECEIVED ADAPTATION IN 2003. the toilet. It seemed to me that a real
 THE UNLIKELIEST
HERO OF ALL:
HOWARD THE DUCK
The idea for Howard the
Duck came to writer
Steve Gerber while he
was in a trance writing in
his Brooklyn apartment.
This should not come as
much of a surprise to
anyone who has ever
heard of Howard, and in
fact probably explains a
lot. Gerber and artist Val
Mayerik dropped him into
issue #19 of Adventure
Into Fear, dated
December 1973, but
PRE-PANTS HOWARD
when editor Roy Thomas
saw a funny animal in an
otherwise scary ‘Murderers, how dare you
magazine, he thought it kill off this duck?’ There
didn’t fit and ordered the was the incident at a San
duo to get rid of him. Next Diego Comics Convention
issue? Sure enough, where somebody asked
Howard was killed off. Roy whether Howard
And then the fans would ever be coming
revolted. As Gerber back, and the entire
recalled in Sean Howe’s auditorium stood up and
person in this situation would book Marvel Comics: The applauded. Stan was
be desperate to find an escape, Untold Story, “The office being asked about it
some way to ease the stress. And was flooded with letters. every place he went on
since it had been long established There was the one wacko the college circuit.”
that Tony was a social drinker, I who sent a duck carcass Soon, Howard was
thought that having that become from Canada, saying, appearing as a backup
Tony’s release valve—and ultimate feature in the pages of
addiction—would be a logical step. Man-Thing, and by 1976
I suggested it to my co-plotter, Bob had his own title, written
Layton, he liked it, so we pitched it by Gerber, which lasted
to editor-in-chief Jim Shooter. Jim 27 issues and survived a
gave it the green light with only one minor kerfuffle when
proviso: Do it well.” Disney expressed
They did, and it became canon. concern over Howard’s
Meanwhile, as all these taboos were similarly to Donald Duck.
being broken and new characters Thereafter, Howard
were coming to the fore, none always wore pants.
were more popular than a band Despite an infamous
of superpowered teenage misfits FOR MOVIEGOERS OF A CERTAIN AGE, HOWARD THE 1986 movie adaptation,
known as mutants. They would DUCK IS SIMPLY SOMETHING THAT CANNOT BE UNSEEN. his cult following
change everything once again. continues today.

37
SPOOKY STUFF

With the lifting of the Comics Code, things get scary again

Spider-man rogue Morbius took

a big bite out of the genre.

38 | H i s t o r y o f C o m i c s
 orror comics had and that was further complicated by
been around for the fact that sales weren’t great.
years, of course, but Black-and-white issues, however,
they had fallen out were cheaper to produce and were
of fashion after Dr. handed over to younger, up-and-
Fredric Wertham’s coming editors to handle, and
1954 book The because they were easier, often the
Seduction of the editors were given several of them
Innocent had led to oversee, and thus manage the
to the creation of the Comics Code, quality. One of these editors was Marv
which pretty much defanged the EDGAR ALLAN POE Wolfman, who came to Marvel in
genre. Thanks to the self-policing the his early 20s and quickly rose from
industry did, certain things were just editorial assistant to editor.
not allowed. “There had never been a horror
To wit, the Code specifically series before in comics,” Wolfman
stated: “Scenes dealing with, or told the website ComedyNGaming in
instruments associated with, walking 2016. “Only one-shot horror stories
dead or torture shall not be used. such as at [1950s publisher] EC. So
Vampires, ghouls and werewolves there was no template on how to do
shall be permitted to be used when it, which meant I decided to write
handled in the classic tradition such what I really wanted to see, which was
as Frankenstein, Dracula, and other a story about characters [and] the
high-caliber literary works written by effect horror plays on them.”
Edgar Allan Poe, Saki, Arthur Conan That freedom led to stories that
Doyle, and other respected authors SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE people actually wanted to read. It
whose works are read in schools also led to new takes on Dracula—
around the world.” called Tomb of Dracula so that the
That prevented a lot of really title could be trademarked, as the
interesting ideas and stories from original character had become public
ever seeing the light of day, but in domain—and the Wolf Man, which
1971, the gutting of the Comics Code became Werewolf by Night. Wolfman
brought with it a new freedom, which was on the Dracula title, with Thomas
led to a total resurgence in the genre. handing off most of Werewolf writing
Roy Thomas and Gil Kane started duties of to Gerry Conway.
it with the creation of Morbius: The The trick of Werewolf by Night was,
Living Vampire, which opened the as Thomas told Comic Book Artist,
door for all kinds of other titles. “I wanted it narrated in first person,
“DC was having some luck SAKI and Stan loved it. It sort of combined
with House of Mystery and House Spider-Man with I Was a Teenage
of Secrets,” Thomas recalled in Werewolf.” Meanwhile, on Tomb of
TwoMorrows’ Comic Book Artist. Dracula, Thomas continued, “Marv
“Marvel at one time had basically was a logical choice. He’d been writing
had a lock on the horror market … horror comics, knew how to write
not in terms of quality, but in terms them. … Sometimes it just takes a little
of quantity. … They had tremendous while, before sooner or later, someone
sales during the early ’50s, so it was comes along, and something clicks.”
a natural to try to get back into the “Frankly,” Wolfman told
genre again.” ComedyNGaming, “since there
The way Marvel structured its had been three other writers on the
horror titles was by splitting up each series, each writing two issues each, I
issue among three teams of writers assumed the book was good as dead
and artists, rather than just the one and that I was put on it because I
for a superhero book. This caused couldn’t hurt it any further. I did
WERTHAM’S MANIFESTO
some trouble, as it was thus three not expect anything but a few issues
times as hard to put a book together, worth of work.”

39
SPOOKY STUFF

But sales became very steady, genre whence they came, and sales make it look like a new offering. I read
and Wolfman’s star continued to increased markedly. Part of the reason the stories and most of them were
rise. Marvel had tons of books on was writer/artist Joe Orlando, who 1940s hokey. I had to use the old stuff
newsstands because, as Thomas saw an opportunity to have fun with because of budget.”
recalled, “We did flood the market, the medium and add more than a He came up with a simple solution.
but remember … DC would have to touch of humor to the scares. “I decided that I would use one page
match it.” “Carmine [Infantino] gave me the to present a new character that would
Which is exactly what DC did. book and I remember that I drew introduce the book. … For House of
The publisher already had House of the first cover from Carmine’s layout Mystery, I used the host to make fun
Secrets and House of Mystery, but and I only had ten new pages to work of the story. I’d say, ‘Wait until you
in the 1960s, they had been used with—the rest were old stories that get to the ending of this piece of drek,’
for superheroes. After 1971, they I had to reprint,” he told Comic Book referring to the reprint.” He laughed,
were repurposed back to the horror Artist in 1998. “I had ten pages to and went on, saying, “You know that

TOMB OF DRACULA HOUSE OF MYSTERY HOUSE OF SECRETS

WEREWOLF BY NIGHT MORBIUS’ DEBUT SWAMP THING

if you sit in the movies for an hour
and a half and the payoff turns out
to be crap, you get angry. You’re not
angry because you stayed an hour and
a half because it was entertaining up
until that point; you’re angry because
the build-up was fine, but the payoff
was crap. Rather than get the readers
angry after they had read five pages of
a story that turns out to be predictable
crap, I would make fun of the payoff
so it made the reader feel as smart as
the host.”
The hosts for those two books? For
House of Mystery, it was Cain, for
House of Secrets, Abel. In most issues,
the former would murder the latter,
but because they were immortal,
Abel always came back, only to be
murdered again. It was much funnier
than it sounds, and fans loved it. They
WEREWOLF BY NIGHT HIDES IN THE SHADOWS. HE WOULD
also loved the way Orlando gave them
NOT HAVE PASSED THE COMICS CODE (LABEL BELOW).
personality.
“I started out basing it on the
biblical Cain and Abel but then I
turned to the people that were around
me,” he told Comic Book Artist. “It’s
just a writer’s trick to take people’s
personalities and inject them into
your characters. [Writer/editor]
Mark [Hanerfeld] stuttered when he

LIKE MORBIUS
got nervous. He was short and heavy
so Abel was short and heavy. Abel was

WAS A [SCI-FI]
a good counterpoint to Cain who was
tall and thin.”
Two other characters came from
this period, both very similar, but one
in 2015. “The short story had set up
people for a book. When he began, VAMPIRE, WE
of them ultimately far more popular
in the long run. Marvel introduced
there was an audience looking for
him. It also showed up in advertising, COULD MAKE
the empathic humanoid swamp
monster Man-Thing in May 1971,
when people were all braced and
ready for the comic. Swamp Thing MAN-WOLF
two months before DC introduced its
own empathetic humanoid swamp
at one point was the top seller.
Percentage-wise, it was outselling
A [SCI-FI]
monster, Swamp Thing, in the pages Superman.”
WEREWOLF…
A LOT
of House of Secrets. Steve Englehart’s Wein would eventually hand over
39-issue run on Man-Thing is a cult writing duties to rising star Alan

OF PLAYING
classic, and while the character still Moore, elevating the character to an
exists today, he doesn’t have anywhere entirely new level, but that would

AROUND
close to the following Swamp Thing come later, when the air had pretty
has. For whatever reason, Swamp much drained out of the horror fad
Thing was a hit right from the jump.
“Swamp Thing was a character
of the 1970s. Still, while most of the
titles were eventually canceled— WITH STUFF.”
from the word go. He was a character including Tomb of Dracula, Werewolf
with a built-in audience,” creator by Night and both of DC’s Houses— WRITER-EDITOR ROY THOMAS
Len Wein told The Comics Journal the impact was a lasting one. TO COMIC BOOK ARTIST

41
UNDERGROUND GOLD

GROOVY
That wasn’t the first such book, of
course, but the financial success of Zap
showed other creators that there was
money to be made by spilling their
weirdest (and often most relevant)

INDIES
thoughts onto the pages of comic strips
and into alternative newspapers and
weeklies. True, these indie works didn’t
get onto mainstream newsstands, but
they did create a system of distribution
using, as Jeremy Dauber describes in
his 2021 book, American Comics: A
History, “Underground bookstores,
record stores, head shops, military
Independent comics hit the scene in the ’70s, breaking new ground base gift stores, political bookstores,
mail-order houses, and considerable
overseas exports.” He also noted
Rolling Stone magazine was an
t was during the 1960s that alternative distributor, “bringing these
underground comix came on underground ‘comix’ along on its
the scene, in conjunction with distribution routes to head shops and
the civil and women’s rights record stores.”
movements, the Vietnam War What became clear at the outset
upheaval and everything else was the influence that William Gaines’
that was happening during that EC Comics had on this movement,
tumultuous decade. as the 1950s publisher of sci-fi and
Legendary creator Robert horror comics, and eventually of
Crumb first found fame with his Zap Mad Magazine. It wasn’t anything
Comix debuting in 1968. “There’s a lot subtle either; publishers of these
of weird sh*t in everybody’s head,” he comix outright announced it in their
told The Barb around that time. “The issues. The debut of 1969’s Bogeyman
ZAP COMIX DEBUT
whole value of a cartoonist is to be able Comics declared “EC Comics for Moral
to bring it out in the open.” Support!” A year later, Skull Comix
made direct reference to how the
U.S. government essentially censored
EC more than a decade prior. The
resulting combination of horror and
comedy, of laughing at the macabre
and making fun of the things that
scare us was popular, and the new
underground comix often aped that.
A perfect example was Two-Fisted
Zombies, by
brothers Rick
and Tom
Veitch, which
combined
war and
horror
comics into
parody.

ROBERT CRUMB AND GALLERY OWNER JACAEBER KASTOR AT A SHOW OF ZAP JEREMY DAUBER’S AMERICAN COMICS: A
COMIX ARTISTS AT THE PSYCHEDELIC SOLUTION GALLERY IN NYC JUNE 8, 1989. HISTORY HAS MUCH TO SAY ABOUT INDIES.

42 | H i s t o r y o f C o m i c s
William Gaines published
Mad Magazine from 1955
until his death in 1992.
UNDERGROUND GOLD

Then there was the use of explicit

sex and nudity. Crumb was famous
for this, often peppering his work—
including solo stuff like Despair,
Uneeda, Big Ass Comics, R. Crumb’s
Comics and Stories, Motor City
Comics, Home Grown Funnies and
ART SPIEGELMAN SERVED AS A CO-EDITOR OF INDIES RAW AND ARCADE. Hytone Comix—with bare-breasted
women and men with their junk
hanging out. Invariably, all these

THE MAKING
organs were gargantuan.
Denis Kitchen, who published
Home Grown Funnies in 1971, became

AND BANNING
a well-known independent publisher.
His Kitchen Sink was a major force in
the indie world throughout the 1970s

OF MAUS
and ’80s and still puts out a few books
each year. He was in his mid-20s then,
living in Wisconsin, which was not
exactly a hotbed of the avant-garde.
Still, he felt its power and was able
The child of Holocaust when they first hear that to get into business with Crumb and
survivors, cartoonist Art I've done a comic strip influence the scene throughout the
Spiegelman began about the Holocaust,” ensuing decade.
serializing his parents’ Speigelman told NPR in “I was living in a relative cultural
story in the pages of Raw. 1987. “Comics are, on the vacuum in terms of where counter-
In a story called Maus, he one hand, a very direct culture influences were least
recalled the horror of the medium. They come prominent, but keep in mind that the
concentration camps across very viscerally. generational movement was quickly
through his father’s eyes. And on the other hand, taking hold almost everywhere,” he
Spiegelman himself they're a very, very told the website Please Kill Me in
appears in the drawings, abstract medium. You 2021. “The first underground I saw,
talking about his real-life have to do a lot more work around the time Mom’s #1 came
estrangement from his to decode a comic strip out, was Bijou Funnies #1, which
dad, while portraying the than you do in had some limited circulation in
people as animals. Jews understanding a film or Milwaukee. That’s when I connected
are mice, German soldiers even reading a book.” with [cartoonist] Jay Lynch and first
cats, Polish nationals After 11 years of discovered there were similar comix
pigs, and so on. “People serialization, he comp- popping up. ”
are usually very upset leted the story in 1991. A Kitchen would soon merge with the
year later, Maus won the publishers of Bijou Funnies and put
Pulitzer Prize—the only out the book under his banner.
graphic novel to do so. Plenty of other books got in on the
Widely revered, it sold action, making fun of any number
millions. of other genres. In 1971, the first
In 2022, a Tennessee issue of Young Lust, for instance,
school board banned it had a pretty young woman crying
because in Spiegelman’s on its cover, mimicking the romance
depiction of his mother’s comics and magazines that had been
suicide in the bathtub, around for years. What was different
he’d drawn a bare breast. were the thoughts she expressed
The resulting uproar led in balloons above her head: “Two
to huge sales, putting weeks ago he was dry-humping me
Maus back on bestseller in the elevator! And now… now I’m
MAUS GRAPHIC NOVEL
lists, where it belongs. lucky if he remembers my goddamn

44 | H i s t o r y o f C o m i c s
 ROBERT CRUMB’S INDIES OF THE PERIOD INCLUDE THE SATIRICAL 1968 MOTOR CITY COMIX, 1970’S
UNEEDA COMIX, AND 1971’S BAWDY GROSS-OUT SPECTACULAR YOUR HYTONE COMIX.

name!” Hardly the kind of thing that The work the pair did blew the
would appear on the cover of a comic doors off the hinges for other talented
published by Stan Lee or DC. That artists like Rick Griffin, George
said, two years later, Lee hired Kitchen Metzger, Victor Moscoso, Skip
to edit Comix Book, an attempt to Williamson and Manuel Rodriguez
get underground creators into the aka Spain, all of whom had stories to
mainstream. The well-intentioned tell that would never see the light of
project only lasted a few months. day in mainstream comics. With this
It’s impossible to talk about this torrent of storytellers free to do what

THE
age of comics without mentioning S. they wanted, and with a burgeoning
Clay Wilson. Dauber compares him to framework in place to get it to people
Hieronymus Bosch, writing that if the
painter “had come to the Haight at the
who desperately wanted it, the
independent comix movement of the PHENOMENON
apex of flower power,” he’d have looked
like Wilson. Wilson had grown up an
1970s was in full effect.
Lee’s longtime assistant “Fabulous” SEEMED TO
enormous fan of EC and amped that
up to the nth degree.
Flo Steinberg ended up leaving Marvel
to become the first female comic BE ERUPTING
Crumb is quoted in Dauber’s book,
saying of Wilson: “The drawings are
publisher, putting out Big Apple Comix
in 1976. Though only a single issue, it
ALL OVER THE
rough, crazy, lurid, coarse, deeply proved incredibly influential, allowing
MAP… AS THE
HIPPIE SCENE
American, a taint of white-trash mainstream talent from the two major
degeneracy … mayhem, violence, houses, like Dennis O’Neil, Wally

RAPIDLY
dismemberment, naked women, Wood and Neal Adams, to delve into
loose body parts, huge, obscene sex something darker and sexier.

GREW, COMIX
organs, a nightmare vision of hell-on- It’s undeniable that these outsiders
earth never so graphically illustrated had far-reaching influence. The
before in the history of art. After
the breakthrough that Wilson had
medium was now no longer solely the
realm of the fantastical. People figured FLOURISHED.”
somehow made, I no longer saw any out that part of the power of a story is
reason to hold back my own depraved how it’s told, and that philosophy has PUBLISHER DENIS KITCHEN
id in my work.” pervaded the industry ever since. TO PLEASE KILL ME

45
Things were go-go in the ’80s, and Sienkiewicz, Mark Waid, Alan appearing in the specialty comic
the comic book industry was no Davis, Neil Gaiman and of course book shops that began dotting
different. Alan Moore, all of whom made the map.
Creators like Frank Miller, their debut in the 1980s. On top of all that, another thing
Marv Wolfman, George Perez, It wasn’t just creators who came from the 1980s that would
Chris Claremont, John Byrne were innovative; a slew of impact the industry long-term:
and Howard Chaykin had gotten new, independent publishers the event series. Marvel did it
into the game during the big sprung up too, allowing writers first with its “Secret Wars,” but
changes of the ’70s, but it was in and artists to own their own DC’s “Crisis on Infinite Earths”
the following decade where they creations. Characters with names would forever alter the shape
became stars. like Grendel, Judge Dredd, Kevin of the comics world, while also
Their success opened the Matchstick, and the Teenage leading to wholesale character
door for eventual legends like Mutant Ninja Turtles, among reboots and a boost… that would,
Dave Gibbons, Art Adams, Bill a host of others, all started indirectly, lead to a near collapse.
WASTELAND WONDERS

END OF THE
Apocalyptic tales and comics
go hand in dystopian hand

WORLD PARTY

The “Days of Future past” X-Men story is

often on lists of the best comics of all time.
 he apocalypse has looking heffer of a girl brandishing an City. Moore’s V for Vendetta, first
always been ripe for unfeasible firearm,” Martin told Sci-Fi published in 1982, is set in a 1997
storytelling, going Online in 2022. “One of our friends England that has been overrun by
back to the Tower was working … to design a pair of fascism after cataclysmic events.
of Babel, so it’s a bit headphones and was basing his design “I knew a bit about the threat of
strange it took comics on the type used by [a] World War II fascism,” Moore told the TV show
until the 1980s to tank driver. His studio was littered Comics Britannia in 2007, “so
really grab the conceit. with loads of photocopies of combat this struck me as potentially a very
Jack Kirby’s vehicles. I pinched one of the images interesting backdrop for this future
postapocalyptic Kamandi: The Last and gave it to Jamie who then stuck it world that I was going to be talking
Boy on Earth!, debuted in DC in 1972, behind his grotty girl illustrations and about. Anarchy is and always has been
but the X-Men’s “Days of Future Past” added a logo which read ‘Tank Girl.’” a romance. It is clearly the best way,
storyline is much better known. Set John Wagner’s Judge Dredd, an and only morally sensible way to run
in a wasteland created by mutant- indie creation that has received a the world, that everybody should be
hunting machines called Sentinels, pair of screen adaptations, came the master of their destiny.”
the 1981 tale follows the time-traveling about because the writer wanted In recent years, some of the
adventures of the last survivors. to tell a story, as he told the website medium’s most popular stories
Time travel was not new to comics, Hero Complex in 2012, of “a very have taken place in dystopias,
but this story—from writer Chris two-dimensional character, a vehicle though nuclear war has given way to
Claremont, penciler John Byrne and for extreme behavior in an extreme environmental disaster and planet-
inker Terry Austin—resonated. It sees society, more of a robot than a man.” killing pandemics. Brian K. Vaughan’s
Wolverine and Kitty Pryde trying to Two of the most successful Y: The Last Man, about the aftermath
navigate this hellscape while all the practitioners of the trope are Alan of a syndrome that kills every male
other mutants are either dead or in Moore and Frank Miller. Each used animal on the planet save one, and
internment camps. Kitty must go back the threat of nuclear war and nuclear Robert Kirkman’s zombie tale The
in time to her younger self to help winter as backdrops for their most Walking Dead, just to name two,
prevent the event that sets everything seminal works—Watchmen and The carried the torch of the genre. Again,
into motion. “The way it evolved Dark Knight Returns, respectively— the origins were very simple. As
was simply by defining a moment, but each also used it in earlier stories. Kirkman told Variety in 2018,
throwing a challenge to the X-Men in Miller’s Ronin, the six-issue miniseries “It was this fun comic book I did
the present day,” Claremont told the he wrote and drew in 1983 and ’84, paying tribute to all of the zombie
website What Culture in 2013, “but took place in a dystopian New York movies I loved.”
being totally unable to know whether
it worked or not.”
Simple, but then, that’s how many
of the genre’s greatest stories started.
Jacques Lob and Jean-Marc Rochette’s
Snowpiercer was an early story of
climate change, taking a standard tale
of class warfare and putting it on a
train moving through an Earth that
had become a frozen tundra. David
Lawrence’s 1986 series Ex-Mutants
was a spoof… that also had stuff to
say about life after nuclear war. “I
used to describe it as a light-hearted
post-nuclear adventure series,” he told
Silver Media in 2004. “The message…
and I didn’t really think about it at the
time, seems to be no matter how bad
we f*ck up, we’ll get by.”
Two years later, Alan Martin’s Tank
KAMANDI HAS BECOME A CULT CLASSIC OVER THE YEARS. THE EISNER AWARD-WINNING
Girl came about because he was in
THE WALKING DEAD SPAWNED THE MASSIVELY SUCCESSFUL AMC SERIES.
a punk rock band with artist Jamie
Hewlett. “Jamie had drawn a grotty

49
YOUNG AND RESTLESS

The Teen Titans Revamp

saw beloved characters
come of age.

The young heroes of X-Men and Teen

Titans helped elevate the industry

tan Lee and Jack

Kirby created the
X-Men in 1964, but
the group of outcast
heroes didn’t really
start to catch fire and
become a sensation
for another decade,
when Len Wein and
Dave Cockrum reintroduced them
in Giant Size X-Men #1. Writer Chris
Claremont took over for Wein almost
immediately, with X-Men #94, the first hard they fight, how hard they work
regular new issue of the ongoing series. to live among humans, the humans
Claremont quickly embraced the always push back with new laws and
analogy of mutants as “other,” and new ways of hurting mutants. What
JEAN GREY EVOLVES
he ran with it in his storytelling. His I’m saying is, when we take steps
X-Men were hunted, even as the team forward, they’re not irreversible,
helped out humanity at every turn. It unfortunately. So how do we address
grabbed readers’ attention in a way the the people that are hurt by that? How
group never really had before, and the do we address our fellow citizens who
writer pushed that aspect of it to the are caught in the middle?”
hilt, using the team as an allegory. Claremont also wrote strong,
“If one group can be dealt with in independent, fully fleshed-out
this way by government fiat, what’s women, which were something of
to stop them from going after any an anomaly at the time. It earned
other group?” he told the website him and the book legions of fans,
GamesRadar in 2021. “The thing which was a good benefit of what
with mutants is, they’ve always should have been something close
CHRIS CLAREMONT
stood in for the disenfranchised and to common sense. After all, female
downtrodden. And no matter how heroes are just as interesting and

50 | H i s t o r y o f C o m i c s
 IN “THE DARK PHOENIX SAGA,” JEAN GREY STRUGGLES TO CONTROL
HER FULL POTENTIAL, BECOMING MORE AND MORE POWERFUL.

Asked in 2019 why the saga still

resonates today, Claremont told the
website The Stranger: “At the time,
women weren’t regarded as credible,
and oftentimes people found it scary “THE FANS
how professional and competent they
could be. There’s some of that. But it’s WERE THAT
often even more so than male
superheroes.
also about a human with the power of
a god. Jean Grey, the human being, is AGE WHERE
“There are more than enough the moral center of Phoenix. If you’d
THEY WERE
BREAKING
buff alpha men running around in taken her a billion years down the
comics, why can’t we have buff alpha evolutionary line, all would have been

FROM THEIR
women? I know too many in real well… Jean just wasn’t old enough to
life,” he told the website Big Comic deal with that yet.”

PARENTS SO…
Page in 2018. That philosophy led to Aside from top-notch storytelling,
what was his crowning achievement, what really drew readers was the age
the story that really sent the X-Men
into the stratosphere of popularity:
of the characters. Sure, there was an
exception or two—like the ageless IT REALLY
“The Dark Phoenix Saga.” The tale of
how Jean Grey went from being the
Wolverine—but for the most part, the
protagonists were teenagers. That SEEMED TO
psychic known as Marvel Girl to the
omnipotent force known as Phoenix
was by design.
“We have all these characters and CLICK. ”
is widely considered one of the best all these primal emotions and if
comic stories ever told. It ran over they are done right, the characters WRITER MARV WOLFMAN
the course of three years, culminating are still young; for me they shouldn’t TO 13TH DIMENSION ON THE
with a shocking ending in 1980. be grown-ups,” Claremont told EVOLUTION OF DICK GRAYSON

51
YOUNG AND RESTLESS

WE WANTED TO AGE-UP [JEAN GREY]. SHE’D BEEN THE

GIRL-NEXT-DOOR MARVEL GIRL FOR TOO LONG. IT WASN’T
INTERESTING ANYMORE.” WRITER CHRIS CLAREMONT TO PORTLAND MERCURY
Substream Magazine in 2018.
“Grown-ups, forgive me, are boring.
Clark Kent? Ugh, he’s a stiff. You
know Bruce Wayne? Oy. For me,
it’s seeing adolescence, it’s seeing
people making mistakes, who are still
learning the rules. … You can stay
absolutely on the cutting edge of time
and circumstance, an event, but you
can ground it in the constant reality of
emotional interaction.”
Interestingly, just as “The Dark
Phoenix Saga” was coming to a head,
DC also found a way to take an old
idea and turn it into something
new. The Teen Titans had been a
fun little sideshow of a title in the
1960s, featuring the teen sidekicks
of Batman (Robin), The Flash (Kid
Flash), Wonder Woman (Wonder
Girl) and Aquaman (Aqualad), with
an occasional appearance from Green
Arrow’s sidekick, Speedy, as well as
new characters like Hawk and Dove,
Bumblebee, and others. It lasted 43
issues before it was canceled, then
brought back in the 1970s before it
was shut down again. But in 1980,
right after writer Marv Wolfman had
moved from Marvel to DC, he had
the idea to bring the team back, with
some new characters to go along with
several of the old ones.
“I had done Teen Titans in the late
’60s,” Wolfman told the website 13th
Dimension in 2018. “I did the origin
of Wonder Girl because there had
A RARE CROSSOVER SAW THE TWO TEEN TEAMS OF DC’S TITANS been no origin of Wonder Girl and
AND MARVEL’S X-MEN SHARING PANELS IN THE COMICS. this was back, again, in ’69 or so. I
created Donna Troy and the whole
storyline. And I co-wrote issue #18
of the original run of Teen Titans,
which introduced a Russian hero
named Starfire, and I secretly plotted
a couple of other books as well. So
I suggested that I revive the Teen
Titans. I worked up characters … and him better. … It was about issue #8— struggled with his green skin, and
[DC was] sort of reluctant about it. “A Day in the Lives”—that I realized Cyborg had to deal with being more
They had just canceled Teen Titans this book was more important than machine than man.
previously, like a year before, and I thought it was, to me. … With the “The Judas Contract,” a story
nobody liked the book. Our excuse Titans, some of these characters were that rivaled “Dark Phoenix” in its
was we’d just do it better. And they brand new, they were being created length and construction, followed
went, ‘Oh, OK,’ ’cause they knew what for the first time. … I figured, ‘Y’know, a superpowered girl named Terra
I did certainly as a Marvel writer.” now I understand them—I’m growing who infiltrated the team just so she
The character Wolfman really with them.’” could help the villainous Deathstroke
wanted to write was Superman, Readers felt the same way. The destroy them from within.
and he felt a good Teen Titans book character development and the reality It was all catnip for readers, and the
would open the door for him to do of how these superpowered teenagers sales were off the charts—indeed, the
so—he was right, as he would write a dealt with their issues made it closer to two publishers even combined for a
Superman book later in the decade. a Marvel style book than one from DC. rare crossover, putting the Titans and
And it turns out the artist with whom Dick Grayson, the original Robin, X-Men in an adventure together in
he was paired didn’t have the Titans grew up and, like most real teens, had 1982. New Teen Titans sold so well, in
at the top of his list either. some disagreements with a parent— fact, that it helped turn around DC’s
“The fact is: New Teen Titans in this case guardian Bruce Wayne/ fortunes in an age when the publisher
was something I was just going Batman. He ended up walking away was faltering. It could be argued,
to do as a favor, because I just from his alter ego and creating the then, that the team of Wolfman and
wanted to do Justice League of more adult identity of Nightwing. He Perez saved the company.
America,” artist George Perez told also had a romantic relationship with “The book would not have
13th Dimension in 2019. “Marv, of his alien teammate Starfire; the two succeeded probably if it wasn’t for our
course, he had the characters pretty are even shown in bed together, which collaboration,” Perez recalled to 13th
much conceptualized. There were was revolutionary at the time. And Dimension, “but … our collaboration
some holes in there, of course, that he wasn’t the only one getting some … it was lightning in a bottle.”
as collaborators we managed to fill action. Wonder Girl married a much That lightning would be put to
together. Like, I became much more older divorced college professor. use again in 1984, with an enormous
in charge of Cyborg because I was Meanwhile Beast Boy—briefly event that would change the
from the inner city and I understood known at the time as Changeling— publishing line forever.

DICK GRAYSON SHOWED OFF HIS, UH, FLASHY NIGHTWING LOOK IN THE TITANS, WHILE STORM, CYCLOPS AND THE GANG
DEAL WITH SOME GROWN-UP ADVENTURES AND MORAL COMPLEXITY IN THE UNCANNY X-MEN.

53
ALL HEROES ON DECK

CRISIS ON INFINITE
SECRET WARS

the CW’s Arrowverse tackled a “Crisis on

Infinite Earths” crossover in 2020.

54 | H i s t o r y o f C o m i c s
 he Bronze Age
Both DC and Marvel changed the way
comics were made,
changed their game what they were about,
with the introduction how the stories were
of the event series told, and essentially
saved the industry
from oblivion. And
yet, by the mid-1980s,
sales were falling off again. New Teen
Titans and The Uncanny X-Men had
both done wonders for the respective
publishers’ bottom lines, but a sort of
THE BLACK SPIDEY SUIT DEBUTED IN
entropy had set in with both houses.
“SECRET WARS”; KENNER TOYS WAS ON IT.
To shift the tides would take
something massive, and that’s what the event series remains a core part of
happened. Two publishing-line-wide modern comics today.
events—where the company’s entire First up, in late 1984, was “Marvel
roster of characters was involved in a Super Heroes Secret Wars,” which
single story across numerous titles— happened because Kenner Toys
occurred within months at Marvel and licensed DC’s Justice League heroes
DC. It would serve as the end of the for a toy line. Not wanting to be left
Bronze Age and usher in the so-called out, Mattel approached the only
Modern Age of comics. The first came other game in town, Marvel, for a line
about because a toy manufacturer of its own.
wanted to have superheroes on its “As we’re setting everything up
roster of properties, the second Mattel says to us, ‘We want you to
because the company’s overall produce a comic book to support the
continuity was so confusing that toy line,’” editor Tom DeFalco recalled
readers couldn’t follow it. Both were at a 2015 Florida SuperCon panel
massively popular, so much so that celebrating the 30th anniversary

MARVEL’S “SECRET WARS” SPAWNED MULTIPLE SEQUELS. THE MCU IS CURRENTLY BUILDING
TO A CINEMATIC VERSION OF THE STORY, AVENGERS: SECRET WARS, OUT MAY 1, 2026.

55
ALL HEROES ON DECK

“CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS” KILLED OFF SOME PRETTY MAJOR PLAYERS (WE’LL MISS YOU, SUPERGIRL),
ESTABLISHING SHOCKING DEATH, AND OCCASIONAL RESURRECTION, AS ANOTHER HALLMARK OF THE EVENT SERIES.

of the series. “And at the time I pieces of Earth and other planets. They Usually, it was three or four issues.
remember laughing and saying, ‘Wait were pitted against each other by the Maybe six. But 12?
a minute, you got Spider-Man, The omnipotent Beyonder with the promise “We had the toy license for a year,”
Hulk, Fantastic Four! Every month of an ultimate reward to the victor.” DeFalco said, “so it made sense to do a
we do comic books to support these Star artist Mike Zeck, fresh off a 12-issue run. Also, I think that Shooter
characters.’ They wanted to have run drawing Captain America, was started to work on a storyline and
something that reflected the name of brought on to draw it, and the decision came up with something that was just
their toy line.” was made to have the series run 12 big enough to last for 12 issues.”
Jim Shooter, who was Marvel’s issues, which was far longer than Because the series affected all the
editor-in-chief at the time, said at the standard miniseries at that time. Marvel books, the idea was that the
SuperCon that Mattel wanted a
big event to garner publicity, and,
as DeFalco explained, “There were
a lot of negotiations, and in the end
we finally got ‘Marvel Super Heroes
Secret Wars.’ Secret Wars was their
idea. We were not thrilled with the
name.”
Thrilled or not, the project was a
go, and after a whole lot of writers,
including X-Men’s Chris Claremont,
passed on the project, Shooter decided
he’d write it himself.
“I cooked up this crazy story,” he
said at SuperCon. “There were two
groups. One was a collection of X-Men
(plus Magneto), Avengers, and the
Fantastic Four; the other featured Dr.
Doom, Galactus, and other top Marvel
SPIDER-MAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES DID A “SECRET WARS” STORY IN 1997.
villains. Both squads were deposited
on an alien world created from bits and

56 | H i s t o r y o f C o m i c s
story would take place between the SECRET WARS ACTION FIGURES WERE BIG SELLERS. TODAY
December 1984 and January 1985 UN-OPENED ONES LIKE THESE CAN FETCH A PRETTY PENNY.
issues of each book, even though the
series would then run for another 11
months. So despite major changes
happening within a title—Spider-Man
had a new costume, the Fantastic Four
had She-Hulk instead of The Thing,
and so on—readers would have to
wait months for explanations. Shooter
informed the writers of all the affected
series to get their characters to New
York’s Central Park in the December
issue, where the characters would
vanish, then reappear, sometimes
vastly different, in January.
It was, as DeFalco recalled, “a basic
logistical nightmare,” but it was a
huge seller and, in fact, introduced
Spider-Man’s famous black costume,
which would later become one
of the publisher’s most popular
characters, Venom. As the editor said
at SuperCon, “Working on a project
like ‘Secret Wars’ was like running a
super marathon. So it’s hard to say
that you enjoyed it, or you had a good
time doing it. But you know, here it is,
[30] years later and people are still he’d read. “For some reason [it] kept
talking about it. So we must have done haunting me, and suddenly the whole
something right.” storyline came together.”
Meanwhile, across town, DC was That story would end up being

IN MANY
planning a major event of its own, “Crisis on Infinite Earths,” and the
though this one would have a different entry into it came from something

WAYS DC’S
effect on its line. Whereas Marvel’s Wolfman had conceived as a child.
“Secret Wars” was meant as something “I had, as a kid—like 7 years old—a

‘CRISIS ON
of a mercenary operation, DC’s “Crisis character that I made up called the
on Infinite Earths” was meant to Librarian, who had a satellite in
straighten out 50 years of stories into a
single continuity.
space, who observed all the different
superheroes and knew all their secrets, INFINITE
“I was the writer of Green Lantern,”
Marv Wolfman told the website 13th
everything like that. We just changed
his name, essentially, to the Monitor.” EARTHS’ ...
Dimension in 2018. “I was writing the
letter column, and some fan—whose
With that character as the basis for
a way to fix the multiverse problem, FUNDAMENTALLY
name I can’t think of at the moment
but generally can—wrote a letter
Wolfman immediately shared his idea
with his colleagues when they arrived
REVAMPED
saying DC continuity makes no sense. for the train.
THE STRUCTURE
OF A
And I wrote, as an answer to it, ‘Yeah, “I pitched them the story and just
one of these days we should fix that.’ asked them what they thought, and

SUPERHERO
Then I headed out.” everyone really talked about it the
Wolfman was on his way to a whole trip down there,” he told 13th

UNIVERSE .”
convention in Pennsylvania, got to Dimension. “That Monday, I went into
the train station early, and as he was [editor] Dick Giordano’s office and
waiting for his colleagues to arrive, he pitched it. … Dick loved it, brought
found himself thinking about what us in to Jenette Kahn, who was the IGN.COM

57
ALL HEROES ON DECK

publisher, and she loved it. DC’s sales line that would appeal to Marvel fans From the first issue, in which
at that point, except for the Teen in a way that characters considered Wolfman killed off the evil Justice
Titans and the Legion of Super- somewhat stodgy hadn’t been able League doppelgängers the Crime
Heroes, were very bad. … Marvel’s to do. Syndicate of America from Earth-3,
sales were huge, as was Titans, but “I spent a couple years working up fans knew big things were afoot.
DC’s sales [overall] were very poor the plot in detail to make sure that Symbolically, Wolfman was killing off
because DC sort of still thought they everything made sense,” Wolfman the trinity of Superman, Batman and
were dealing with a kid audience and recalled. “This was gonna be so large Wonder Woman, the real versions of
most of the people now were at least and so difficult to do that you couldn’t which then wouldn’t appear until five
in their teenage years or early 20s by just make it up as you went along. or six issues into the series.
that point.” Everything had to make sense from “My feeling was that if the Marvel
The idea was to change the whole day one, and there had to be a reason fans did not like DC, it’s probably
DC Universe and create a publishing why everything was there.” because they tried Superman,

LEGENDS DARK NIGHTS: DEATH METAL FLASHPOINT

DARK CRISIS HEROES IN CRISIS THE FINAL NIGHT

58 | H i s t o r y o f C o m i c s
THERE ARE FEW THINGS AS EXCITING TO COMICS
FANS AS SEEING THEIR FAVORITE HEROES COME
TOGETHER TO DEAL WITH IMMENSE THREATS.” CBR.COM
Batman and Wonder Woman at the said, “Once I realized DC’s … 50th a single universe with a shared history,
time and didn’t like the characters, anniversary was in 1985, we used that streamlining everything into a single
and they didn’t know all these other as a point to publish it because it was a continuity. The idea was that all the
characters that DC had,” Wolfman great time to say, ‘50 years and now it titles would start over at issue #1, but
said. “They just made a decision based starts all over.’” ultimately, only a handful of titles,
on what everybody knew. Superman, After their success together on including Superman and Wonder
Batman, Wonder Woman. So, they New Teen Titans, it made sense to Woman, followed that plan.
wouldn’t appear and I wanted to pair Wolfman with artist George Over the next two decades, the
show how powerful the villain was Perez, who told 13th Dimension in single continuity remained in effect,
because in four pages he got rid of 2019, “When I heard about it and until another event, 2005’s “Infinite
Superman, Batman and Wonder came in, when they were still doing Crisis,” recreated the multiverse
Woman instantly! Without even, story conferences about it, I had my anew, with 52 different universes in
really, a struggle! And that was purely fingerprints all over it before I even the DC line.
psychological because I knew the touched a page: ‘Are you crazy?! The impact both “Secret Wars”
fans would not piece that together Unless you have somebody you really and “Crisis” had on the industry is
but they’d suddenly realize, ‘This is a want, I would love to do a book like hard to overstate. Both series were
really powerful villain because he just this. Draw everybody? Now you do so enormously successful, they
destroyed Superman, Batman and mean everybody right? We don’t have ensured that so-called event series
Wonder Woman!’ even if that wasn’t to leave anybody out?’” would become the norm, a perpetual
quite their names.” Literally every single character in presence in publishing, and continue
Though Wolfman first conceived the DC Universe made an appearance to be used to rejigger a publishing line.
the idea in 1981, it didn’t actually in the series, which ultimately As long as fans keep buying them, and
see the light of day until 1985. He coalesced all the various universes into they do, then we’ll keep seeing them.

MAJOR EVENTS DC
Legends (1986)
MARVEL
Secret Wars II (1985)

SERIES SINCE…
Millennium (1987) Atlantis Attacks (1989)
Death of Superman (1992) Infinity War (1992)
Zero Hour (1994) Infinity Crusade (1993)
Final Night (1996) Heroes Reborn (1996)
Literally every year since “Secret Wars” and
Identity Crisis (2004) House of M (2005)
“Crisis on Infinite Earths” were published, one or
Infinite Crisis (2005) Civil War (2006)
both of the two major houses have had some kind
Final Crisis (2008) Secret Invasion (2008)
of story event that crossed over multiple titles,
Blackest Night (2009) Secret Wars (2015)
and often had a miniseries telling the primary
Flashpoint (2011) Civil War (2016)
story (creating the need for fans of one character
Heroes in Crisis (2018) Secret Empire (2017)
to buy issues from other titles). Though by no
Dark Nights: Death Metal (2020)
means a complete list, this is just a sampling of
Infinite Frontier (2021) AND ALSO…
the stories we’ve seen in the Modern Era.
Dark Crisis (2022) Marvel vs. DC (1996)
MASTER CLASS

DC did a two-part animated adaptation of Alan Moore and

THe Dark Knight returns in 2012.
Frank Miller took the
medium to dark and
glorious places with
seminal works

60 | H i s t o r y o f C o m i c s
 institutionalized because Batman, his
archnemesis, disappeared. Harvey
Dent’s had plastic surgery to regain
his appearance and put Two-Face to
bed forever. The world is teetering
on collapse and nuclear annihilation,
and Superman oversees it all as
something of an absentee god. But
when Two-Face does, in fact, come
back, so does Batman, as Bruce
returns to the only identity that ever
made sense to him with the help of a
young girl named Carrie Kelley, who
becomes a new Robin.
The four-issue story goes into
f you’re looking to pick a year great detail about what makes a hero,
that ushered in the history as well as the cult of Batman and how
of modern comics, 1986 is a a single voice can change an entire
darn good choice. If only a society. It depicts a bleak future that,
single seminal, once-in-a- sadly, is closer to the current reality WRITER-ARTIST FRANK MILLER
generation piece of work had than we’d all like to admit, and it IN HIS SIGNATURE BLACK HAT
been published in that year, features two epic battles: The first
it would be enough. But, in (and less heralded) is the final face-
fact, a pair of comic book off between Batman and the Joker.
stories that are widely considered to The other, much more iconic one
be the two very best ever made both comes at the story’s climax, when a
hit newsstands within months of super-suited Bruce takes on the Man
each other. of Steel. The Batman–Superman
First came Frank Miller’s battle was a talking point for comic

EVERY ART
deconstruction of Batman and the book aficionados for nearly four
mythos around him in the form of The decades before it was immortalized

FORM HAS
Dark Knight Returns. It told the story almost beat-for-beat in Zack
of an older, retired Bruce Wayne. Snyder’s Batman v Superman: Dawn

ONE WORK SO
Ten years past his last appearance as of Justice.
the Caped Crusader, Miller’s Bruce Miller was already a star before
is tired and empty inside, a shell
of himself. Joker is catatonic and
he took on Batman, having written
and drawn an epic 34-issue run of MONUMENTAL
AND
PROFOUND
IT FOREVER
DEFINES
THE MEDIUM.
FOR COMICS,
[THAT IS]
WATCHMEN.”
DANIEL LEE, WRITING
BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE WAS A MESS, BUT IT DID
GIVE FANS BATS AND SUPES’ DARK KNIGHT RETURNS SCUFFLE. FOR INSIDER

61
MASTER CLASS

DIRECTOR CHRISTOPHER NOLAN’S THE DARK KNIGHT

BORROWED FROM MILLER’S WORK ON BATMAN.

about the first time you’re knocked

to the ground and punched in the
stomach and have a gun waved in
your face and realize that you’re
completely at somebody’s mercy,” he
told The Hollywood Reporter in 2016.
“And they can take your life. And at
that point, you’ll do anything. There’s
MILLER’S OTHER WORK INCLUDES something so humiliating about that.
DAREDEVIL AND BATMAN: YEAR ONE. And to me that made me realize that
Batman was the most potent symbol
DC had in its hands. Sure, Superman
can fly, but Batman turns me back
into that guy who is scared and at the
Marvel’s Daredevil, as well as the do it. And I got ready, I did a lot of same time the guy who can come and
six-issue limited series Ronin, about research, and when I came up with save him. It’s a perfect myth.”
a futuristic samurai. But Batman was the idea of making him older than me, The inclusion of Superman in the
something much bigger—and scarier. I was sold.” quintessential Batman story might
“Len Wein approached me about Miller was still in his late 20s at seem incongruous, but for Miller, it
doing Batman. I’d always wanted the time, and while his version of was necessary, as he told CBR.com in
to do Batman, but I didn’t feel I Bruce Wayne was a quarter century 2016: “The reason Superman had to
was ready to do him,” Miller told older, Miller still understood the be part of this story—and has to be a
the website Comic Book Resources character at least partially because part of any big Batman story—is that
in 2016. “I was kind of spooked by of an incident that had happened to the two are naturally bound together.
Batman because he was such a big him personally years before. Living They’re Apollo and Dionysus. The
deal as a character, and all I’d done at in New York City, Miller had been guy who plays it rough with the
that point was Daredevil. But while mugged, and it changed the way he crooks, and the flying guy who might
I was doing Ronin, I got over my fear looked at life, and at the heroes he as well be wearing a badge. They need
and I decided that I’d jump in and loved. “There’s something demeaning each other.”

62 | H i s t o r y o f C o m i c s
 IN WATCHMEN, ALAN MOORE EXPLORED THE VERY REAL REPERCUSSIONS OF WHAT IT
WOULD BE LIKE TO HAVE CAPED VIGILANTES OPERATING IN THE REAL WORLD.

Spoiler alert: That climax, in which them, creating a mystery that began Beetle; The Question; Nightshade;
Batman appears to beat Superman as an investigation into the murder Peter Cannon, Thunderbolt; and
and then die of a heart attack (double of an older hero and turned into Peacemaker—so Moore and Gibbons
spoiler: he’s faking it), is ballsy and something much bigger. In Moore’s created facsimiles that took on lives of
apocalyptic and downright game- words and Gibbons’ pictures was the their own. Doctor Manhattan was the
changing. It boils both characters story of what heroism means, our godlike superhuman. Nite Owl was a
down to their core and forces the relationships to our demons, how our street-level, gadget-using detective.
readers to recognize what makes best intentions sometimes go astray Ozymandias was the world’s smartest
each of them great. It’s revolutionary, and so much more. man and the personification of
and it worked so well, it forced every DC had big plans for these human perfection. Silk Spectre was
single writer who came after to place characters—Captain Atom; Blue a second-generation heroine who
Batman in that dark, gritty world, for
better or worse. ZACH SNYDER’S 2009 WATCHMEN STARRED JACKIE EARLE HALEY, MATTHEW GOODE,
Miller would follow it up a year BILLY CRUDUP, PATRICK WILSON, MALIN AKERMAN AND JEFFREY DEAN MORGAN.
later with another classic story, a
retelling of the Batman origin called
Year One, that many felt matched the
magic of its predecessor, thus giving
Miller the unique honor of having
written the two greatest Batman
stories over told.
Just a few months after the first
issue of Miller’s masterpiece came
Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’
Watchmen—a reworking of the
Charlton Comics characters who
had been recently purchased by
DC Comics and had all made
appearances in “Crisis on Infinite
Earths” the year before. Moore took
these characters and reinvented

63
MASTER CLASS

started as a dilettante and became

a fierce crime fighter in her own
right. Rorschach was a psychotic
vigilante prone to torturing and even
killing the criminals he hunted. The
Comedian was a professional killer
who worked as an assassin for the
REGINA KING WON A BEST ACTRESS EMMY FOR HER ROLE ON THE SERIES. U.S. government. His murder sets the
YAHYA ABDUL-MATEEN II (BELOW) WON BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR. story in motion, and as Rorschach
investigates what he believes is a

WATCHMEN
serial killer bent on taking out former
superheroes, he slowly enlists the
others in the investigation. Along the

ON HBO
way, it becomes clear that the retired
Ozymandias—known to the world as
billionaire Adrian Veidt—is behind it
all in an effort to save the planet from,
you guessed it, nuclear annihilation.
When the announcement read it when I was 13 The central tenets of the story, like
came in 2017 that Lost years old. … The first two Miller’s Batman work, deconstructed
co-creator Damon times [I was offered the the heroic form and mythos, and,
Lindelof was making a opportunity to write an more than that, did it in a literary way.
Watchmen miniseries for adaptation] it was The Dark Knight Returns is a brilliant
HBO, fans were… let’s incredibly tempting. I comic book story, but Watchmen
say nonplussed. Many said … I knew the best job is deeper than that, and is viewed
hadn’t liked Zack I could do adapting the by people as not just a great comic
Snyder’s 2009 adaptation original Watchmen was book, but as a great novel. In 2005,
of the comic books and just being a really good Time made a list of the 100 greatest
wondered what Lindelof cover band.” English-language novels published
might bring to the With that in mind, since the magazine’s inception in
endeavor. A reboot? A “something else entirely” 1923. Watchmen was on it.
rethink? Something else was just what fans got, as Moore and Gibbons both knew
entirely? Lindelof was Lindelof offered a sequel they had created something good,
cagey about it, offering to the comics that picks but neither had any clue exactly
few details. He did tell up 30 years after events how good. Gibbons told Wired
EW, “First and foremost of the original in a world magazine in 2008, “I don’t think we
this is something I love where cops (Regina King ever thought that we were going to
and something that made and Don Johnson) must produce the Citizen Kane of comics,”
a very profound wear masks, secret while Moore told SciFiNow in 2009,
impression on me when I societies are afoot, and “If you’re asking did I anticipate
Doctor Manhattan’s before Issue 1, that the book would
whereabouts are a have the impact it would, then no.
mystery. It managed to … As far as me and Dave Gibbons
say profound things knew, we were embarking upon
about racism in America, something that was perhaps a
while still working in the slightly darker, more ironic take on
giant squid attack (which the superhero, a kind of outgrowth
Snyder had altered). of some of the ideas that I’d already
Raved The Atlantic: “A kicked around in Marvelman [first
marriage of pulpy published in 1982, and also known as
mythmaking and grim Miracleman].”
reality, telling a weighty All these years later, the impact
ABDUL-MATEEN AS story under the guise of is still felt. In a 2022 essay, writer
DOCTOR MANHATTAN mass-market Dinesh Liyanage wrote on the
entertainment." website Comic Book Resources,

64 | H i s t o r y o f C o m i c s
“Rather than reinvigorate the genre, thought that with works like was first released. The trade paperback
[Moore] wanted to enlighten readers Watchmen … I’d be able to say, that collects the entire 12-issue story
to the limitations of the superhero ‘Look, this is what you can do with has never gone out of print.
genre. What he didn’t expect was the these stale old concepts. You can Still, Moore has a specific take on
industry to embrace the gloom of turn them on their heads. You how his work and Miller’s are often
Watchmen and continue that trend can really wake them up. Don’t paired in discussion. As he told
for decades. They completely missed be so limited in your thinking. SciFiNow, “In a lot of instances you’ll
his point. … Watchmen is a satire. It Use your imagination.’ And, I was find Watchmen and Dark Knight
has to be because the players in it are naively hoping that there’d be a grouped together, and this is because
less than likable. Adrian Veidt has a rush of fresh and original work by both came out of the same comic
Messiah complex. Doctor Manhattan people coming up with their own. company at the same time. They
is unconcerned with humanity. The … Instead, it became this massive both showed a darker vision of the
Comedian is a right-wing, patriotic stumbling block that comics can’t superhero. I think that there is an
combination of Captain America even really seem to get around to essential big difference between them,
and the Peacemaker. And this day. They’ve lost a lot of their though. … Dark Knight was certainly
Rorschach? Rorschach is an extreme original innocence, and they can’t a grimmer picture of Batman, but if
right-wing sociopath; he’s Travis get that back. And, they’re stuck, you look at the subtext of both books—
Bickle in a mask and trench coat. it seems, in this kind of depressive in Watchmen, all of the characters
Moore hoped to make a point about ghetto of grimness and psychosis.” are flawed in some way. There is no
what could be accomplished with the Comic writers aped Watchmen’s way that they work in terms of the
superhero genre.” gloom without its sophistication, and conventional idea of the hero. Their
As Moore told the magazine while that has led to some great stories presence is more of a problem for
Inverse in 2016, “I’d originally through the years—tales we’ll get the world that they inhabit than any
into in coming pages—just as often it kind of ray of salvation or hope. With
spawned depressing garbage. Watchmen, I was actually exploring
The pros of Watchmen certainly the real-world ramifications of these
outweighed the cons, and the magic characters and ideas. … They’re two
that Moore and Gibbons captured is very different works.”
revered as much today as it was when it Yes. Both of them brilliant.

THE CAST OF THE ANIMATED DARK KNIGHT RETURNS INCLUDED PETER WELLER
AS BATMAN, MICHAEL EMERSON AS THE JOKER, AND ARIEL WINTER AS ROBIN.

65
SLUG ORIGINALS
NEW TEEKAY

TMNT have become a billion-

dollar franchise with toys,
cartoons and films.

With new marketing options, underground titles like the

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles made a mainstream splash

66 | H i s t o r y o f C o m i c s
ÜBER-DISTRIBUTOR PHIL SEULING HELPED
GET INDIES INTO THE HANDS OF THE MASSES.

tarting in the
1970s, the direct
market came into SATIRICAL AMERICAN FLAGG!
play, thanks to a
convention organizer
and distributor
named Phil Seuling.
Soon, comic shops
were in every state
and most major cities, as comics
became something more than just
the funny books that sat beside
magazines on newsstands. With
those shops and this new direct
market came new publishers that WE WERE
were on the vanguard of fostering
fresh voices, bringing with them the MAKING UP
kinds of characters that the two major
publishing houses weren’t producing.
THE RULES
Unconventional heroes, antiheroes,
AS WE
WENT ALONG.
villains, funny animals that interacted
with humans, otherwise mainstream

IT WAS A
titles featuring extreme violence and
explicit sex—all became part of the

HELL OF A
fabric of the 1980s comic scene, a
decade after the rise of underground
comix had set the proverbial table
for them. Like the creators who LOT OF FUN.”
had become stars a decade earlier,
this was a generation that grew up ECLIPSE CO-FOUNDER
reading comics and brought with DEAN MULLANEY

67
NEW ORIGINALS

DARK HORSE COMICS HAS LONG PUT OUT EDGY HORROR BOOKS LIKE COUNT CROWLEY ABOUT A DIY MONSTER HUNTER; THE MASK,
WHICH GRANTS POWERS FOR A PRICE AND INSPIRED THE JIM CARREY FILM; AND THE PREDATOR SERIES THAT AUGMENTS THE FILMS.

them a sensibility about how to tell the indie work a decade earlier. Reagan administration. “Visually,
stories with unique twists. The new That underground comix scene had graphically, textually, narratively,
brand of heroes was afflicted with created all kinds of opportunities the book isn’t easy to read, and [it]
mental disorders, or actually killed for writers and artists to do their doesn’t congratulate its reader for
the villains, or poked fun at the very own thing, but in the 1980s, those being there, the way ‘the hero with
concept of the superhero with either same concepts and ideas became a wound’ traditional comic book
a jaundiced sarcasm or a joyous sense more mainstream and reached a formula does so well,” he continued.
of tribute. larger audience. The period also That was sort of the point; these
All of this provided readers with saw new rules for how comics could unaffable supporting characters and
something fresh that differed from be made—for instance, increased the fact that it wasn’t easy to read
rights for creators who could now made the storytelling that much more
retain ownership of their work. complex. It wasn’t a mainstream
Titles like Watchmen and The Dark comic book.
Knight Returns get a lot of the press, “On the other hand,” Chaykin
but there are dozens of books from continued, “an entire generation
smaller, independent publishers that of artists and writers grew up on
were wonderful and influential. it. And despite the current trend of
Take Howard Chaykin’s American nice driving out the good, in which
Flagg! Chaykin had done some work talent has to apologize and pander
for DC and Marvel in the 1970s, but to an audience that operates under
it was this title, which he wrote and the mistaken impression that it has
drew, that stands the test of time. the right not to have its feelings hurt,
This, despite the fact that the book Flagg! opened the door to an entirely
was, as Chaykin acknowledged to new vocabulary for telling stories
Tripwire magazine in 2017, “packed in comics.”
with a slew of unlikable supporting What Chaykin and other creators
characters operating in a vulgar and like him brought to the medium was,
unsettling place, with an equally as he told Tripwire, “irony, comedy
difficult world view.” People saw the and tragedy with consequences, and a
HOWARD CHAYKIN
book as nihilistic, but really it was strongly articulated point of view—in
a not-so-thinly-veiled attack on the what I know is a genre product.”

68 | H i s t o r y o f C o m i c s
 Chaykin’s work was published by
First Publishing, which in the ’80s
populated the comic shop shelves
alongside titles from companies like
Comico, Malibu, Eclipse, Dark Horse,
Fantagraphics, Aardvark-Vanaheim
and plenty more. While most of
them would eventually go bankrupt
and fade into oblivion—only Dark
Horse is still in business—the work
they produced in that time lives on,
like two books writer Mike Baron
created: Badger and Nexus. Badger
was the hero with a mental disorder,
while Nexus killed his villains, acting
as an intergalactic executioner.
Both concepts were, of course,
revolutionary.
“Badger is a multiple personality,
only one of whom is a costumed
crime fighter,” Baron told the website
Fantasy Focus in 2021. “Inspired by
Daniel Keyes’ The Minds of Billy
Milligan, Badger is an accomplished
martial artist who can see a technique
once and replicate it. He has an
unusual rapport with animals, almost
as if they understand one another.
As MPD is the result of horrendous
childhood experiences, there is a dark
side of his personalities, which we
A POPULAR TITLE, BADGER HAS BEEN PUBLISHED UNDER FIRST
examined closely in the Dark Horse
COMICS, CAPITAL COMICS AND MORE RECENTLY DARK HORSE.
series The Shattered Mirror.” While
that all sounds pretty bleak, most of
the stories are very funny. “They are
designed to entertain. That’s rule
number one. It is the writer’s job to
entertain. Never lose sight of that.”
Even more entertaining was Nexus,
which Baron created with artist
Steve “The Dude” Rude. Nexus was a
human named Horatio Hellpop who
was selected by, as Baron described it,
“an insane alien conducting a social
experiment according to its own
mores and rules.”
“I asked myself what made for a
compelling character,” he told Fantasy
Focus. “What if he killed someone
every time he showed up? This was
compelling, but it’s hardly a new
revelation. It’s why there are so many
cop, doctor and lawyer shows. Life ECLIPSE TITLES INCLUDE DNAGENTS, WHICH FOLLOWS GENETICALLY
and death. The stuff of drama. In order ENGINEERED SUPERHEROES, AND FUSION, ABOUT A GALACTIC ARMS RACE.
to make Nexus sympathetic, he would

69
NEW ORIGINALS

IT WAS A TIME …WHERE A KID LIKE ME ... COULD,

FOR THE FIRST TIME, IMAGINE AN EXCITING CAREER
MAKING COMIC BOOKS.” COMICO FOUNDER GERRY GIOVINCO IN A BLOG POST
be an executioner of mass murderers, Eclipse co-founder Dean Mullaney a comic book!? Are you crazy?’ So
going after otherwise untouchable war told the Comics Reporter in 2013. things change. In some respects I was
criminals… Crimes against humanity. “Some individuals have more of an ahead of my time; I did things too
One of Nexus’ recurring themes is the influence, but I think collectively we all soon. We co-published the first line of
difficulty we might have conversing grew up… Eclipse started at the same manga. They sold OK. But manga was
with an alien intelligence. Thus, Nexus time the direct market did. So there just starting to get attention in the
only goes after humans. The kicker were no rules.” U.S., and it was too soon.”
was, he was a reluctant executioner, Mass-produced comics were still They weren’t the only ones making
the victim of an insane alien who no more than a dollar back then— moves in the space. Gerry Giovinco
had chosen Horatio Hellpop as the The Dark Knight Returns had been and Bill Cucinotta founded Comico,
conscience of his race.” $2.95, an astonishing price at the perhaps best known these days as the
That was not the kind of thing that time—so when Eclipse started putting original home of two notable titles by
a reader would ever have seen in a DC out higher-priced, more prestigious- writer-artist Matt Wagner: Grendel
or Marvel book, but again, that was looking material, people didn’t and Mage. “The young minds of the
the point. With this new reality, and immediately know what to do with it. seventies,” Giovinco wrote in a 2013
with it a new freedom that allowed “I’m very proud of everything we blog for the website Diversions of the
creators far more liberties to tell their accomplished at Eclipse,” Mullaney Groovy Kind, “cultivated on a steady
stories, there were new rules. In a recalled. “We published the first diet of comics, met each other, came
sense, there were no norms to violate. graphic novel specifically for the together and began a revolution
“I think our generation, just like comic-shop market. Phil Seuling was fueled by the formation of the
every generation in comics, has a the only distributor, and he looked Direct Comic Market that would
profound influence on the medium,” at me, and he said, ‘Five dollars for change the course of comics history.”

THE OFF-BEAT FLAMING CARROT COMPLEX GRENDEL FAN FAVE THE CROW
 Antihero Grendel was playboy
Hunter Rose, a character Wagner
himself described as evil, telling
journalist Shawna Ervin-Gore in
2000 that Rose and his alter ego was,
“strangely moral and also as self-
centered and amoral as I think anyone
could be. … He is such an intense
character when he’s first introduced—
such a prodigy and so focused—that
it’s extremely difficult to relate to him.”
Wagner soon killed him off, but
then the publisher wanted more
stories, so Wagner came to an
interesting conclusion. He told Ervin-
Gore: “I got this idea to transform
Grendel into a generational character,
when I turned my thoughts to how
would I turn this story into a series
with monthly installments. I knew I
had to come up with a way to keep it
interesting for myself, and the only
way I could see doing that was to
continually reinvent it. So that led
me to the generational aspect of this THE RELATABLE HEROES IN A HALF SHELL—LEONARDO, MICHELANGELO, DONATELLO
character, where the persona tends to AND RAPHAEL—ARE ONE OF INDIE COMICS’ GREATEST SUCCESS STORIES.
move—in the early stories—from one
host body … into another. Eventually
that evolved into a large social strata, on the job for all to see. Out of this it a ‘ninja turtle’ and both Peter and I
which provided a wider tableau.” enjoyable and exuberant free-for- laughed.”
Mage was something a bit closer to all came lasting characters like the The one became a group of four,
home, as it took a look at the Arthurian Flaming Carrot, the anamorphic each with different personalities,
legend, but with a twist. An alienated aardvark/Conan the Barbarian spoof and an origin eerily similar to that of
young man named Kevin Matchstick, known as Cerebus, and of course the Marvel’s blind superhero Daredevil
who happened to look exactly like most famous creations of the time, (“We ripped it off enough that Marvel
Wagner, meets a wizard named Mirth the Teenage Ninja Mutant Turtles. probably should have sued us, but
who turns out to be the Merlin of Created by Kevin Eastman and didn’t”), and they self-published it in
legend, and Kevin is the reincarnation Peter Laird, the Turtles were a 1984. To say it was a sensation is an
of Arthur, wielding a magic baseball product of two men who, as Eastman understatement, as here we are, nearly
bat that is actually Excalibur. recalled before his appearances at the 40 years later, and the Ninja Turtles
“At the beginning, I wasn’t quite Supanova expo in Australia in 2020, are often in the same conversation as
ready,” he told the website About “grew up as a fan of all that sci-fi, pop- Batman and Spider-Man as the best
Creativity in 2007. “Part of what culture stuff: Star Trek, The Twilight known comic book heroes.
worked with Mage was that you saw Zone, Batman or comic books.” All this is only part of the story, of
me growing up as an artist in the During a late-night drawing session course, and while there was a great
process of drawing and telling that with Laird, the two started chatting deal of classic material that came out
story. … At least at that initial stage of about what kind of animal Bruce Lee in the decade, there was even more
my career, I think that was one of my would be, “because I was a big Bruce forgettable dreck. But the stuff that
biggest strengths—my reach always Lee fan, what would be the silliest stuck did so for a reason, and it allowed
kind of exceeded my grasp, and I just animal Bruce Lee would be? A slow- the industry to continue evolving. As
paddled a little harder to try and get moving turtle was the natural joke, the Bronze Age ended and the Modern
up to snuff.” and I laughed. So I did the sketch of Age began, and indie publishers came
That was part of the beauty of a turtle kind of standing upright, and and went, the indie comics movement
these creators, that indie publishers he had nunchucks strapped to him continued without breaking stride,
allowed them the freedom to learn and a mask on and stuff, and I dubbed right into the 1990s.

71
After beginning the decade in through the decade, as fans the publishers to the creators.
a slump, the growth the comic cooled on what the publishers Seven creators in particular
book industry experienced in the were offering, Marvel declared formed their own company, called
1980s made it seem like the boom bankruptcy, and more than one it Image Comics, and began a
was neverending. publisher went bust. Meanwhile, whole new publishing revolution
It was, in reality, rather short- just as great new talent had come that continues to this day.
lived. The success led to excess, to the industry in the 1970s and The decade also saw the start
a saturating of a marketplace ’80s, so did the 1990s create of a recognition of the industry’s
that didn’t have the demand. After stars. Todd McFarlane, Jim Lee, systemic misogyny and an
the first issue of a new X-Men Warren Ellis, John Cassaday, Rob increase in the popularity of the
series sold more than 8,000,000 Liefeld, and Whilce Portacio, just culture of comics. And the seeds
copies in 1991, publishers began to name a few, all debuted during were planted for what would
overprinting numerous titles. the decade, and with their rise, become a new boom after the
The collapse came midway more power than ever fell from turn of the century.
73
UN-SUPER SALES

After decades of growth, the biz nearly went belly-up in the 1990s

Lois cradles a dying Supes in the 2018

animated film THe Death of Superman.

74 | H i s t o r y o f C o m i c s
 he comic book IT’S ONE OF THE BEST-SELLING COMICS OF ALL TIME, BUT “THE DEATH
industry had gone big OF SUPERMAN” HAD A MASSIVE PRINT RUN, SO THERE WAS NO SCARCITY.
time. Alan Moore’s
Watchmen and Frank
Miller’s The Dark
Knight Returns
had become iconic.
Tim Burton’s 1989
Batman movie had
turned people back on to superheroes
and reminded the world why these
characters had mass appeal. So did
the artists and creators whose work
impressed readers. People were
excited about comics… but they were
also interested in speculating on the
values of these volumes. Publishers
put out special issues, ones with
unique and limited numbered covers,
and various other gimmicks to get
readers to buy multiple copies and,
potentially, make an investment in
the future.
In 1990, the first issue of writer-
artist Todd McFarlane’s Spider-Man
sold 2.35 million copies. “That comic when publishers really began focusing
showed a young star creator could on older readers, with foil covers on
sell a crazy number of comics and books and an increased focus on sex,
demonstrated to people both inside violence and mature, gritty portrayals
and outside comics that there was of the characters involved. Ask fans of
a new era dawning,” Jason Sacks, the era what they think of the content,
co-author of American Comic Book and they’ll say one of three things: “I
Chronicles: The 1990s told The loved what they did and it kept me
Hollywood Reporter in 2018. “From reading,” “I hated what they did with
there, the ’90s as we think of them
really started.”
the characters but it kept me reading,”
or, just as likely, “I stopped reading “PEOPLE
A year later, Jim Lee’s X-Men #1
sold over 8 million copies. “That
comics for a while around then.”
Either way, while the over-the-top
LINED UP
runaway sales success sparked the excess in the stories of the time had its
AROUND
STREET
gold rush of people looking to pay fans, the events that happened in the
their kids’ college funds with profits real world sort of speak for themselves.

CORNERS
from holographic issues of Fantastic What happened? Sacks’ point
Four, The Death of Superman, Turok: about parents thinking they could use

TO GET THEIR
Dinosaur Hunter and Youngblood,” comics to pay for their kids’ college
Sacks said. “When they found their tuition is on target, but that’s only
copy of Bloodshot #1 was worthless
because everyone owned that comic,
part of it. As older comics began to
appreciate in value, what with so few COPY OF
that helped spark the bust in sales
that crushed the industry for the rest
of them surviving, people began to
think that the same could be done with THE ICONIC
of the decade.”
That jumps ahead a bit, though.
modern books. Series relaunched with
new #1 issues, intended as collectibles. SUPERMAN #75.”
There were a bunch of factors that led The aforementioned variant covers
to the collapse, which coincided with came out, with smaller print runs SCREENRANT ON THE
the Dark Age. The Dark Age was a part costing more money. Comics were 1992 PUBLICATION OF
of the ongoing Modern Age of comics, sold in foil bags to keep them pristine, “THE DEATH OF SUPERMAN”

75
UN-SUPER SALES

BATMAN RETURNS, STARRING MICHELLE PFEIFFER

AS CATWOMAN AND MICHAEL KEATON AS THE
CAPED CRUSADER, RENEWED INTEREST IN COMICS.

“FOR THE FOURTH QUARTER OF 1996 ALONE,

MARVEL POSTED LOSSES OF MORE THAN
$400 MILLION.” SEAN HOWE, MARVEL COMICS: THE UNTOLD STORY
sometimes making collectors buy There was another factor that led enthusiastic, but then the company
two copies, one to read and one to to disaster, though it’s not as well started focusing more on trading
put away. Massive stories were told known or documented: Comics didn’t cards, action figures, toys and other
— like 1992’s “Death of Superman” ship on time. Big crossover events ancillary products and less on comics.
and “Knightfall,” the story of Bane were advertised and solicited, and Whereas the publishing wing had
breaking Batman’s back—that would then the issues… just never made it once represented 90% of Marvel’s
garner a ton of mainstream attention to the stores. When seven creators sales, by 1993 it was down to one-
and speculators who thought the broke off to form their own company, third. As such, fans and industry
books would be worth something. Image Comics (page 78), the industry insiders began seeing the company in
Meanwhile, regular readers were prepped for a monster shake-up. Well, a more negative light.
turned off. Comic shops started buying it got one, but probably not the kind “So the sales department
massive numbers of issues that simply it was expecting. A crossover was masterminded a plan,” author Sean
didn’t have the consumers. Many planned with another new publisher, Howe writes in his book Marvel
of those who did buy X-Men #1, for Valiant, in 1993 and 1994, but things Comics: The Untold Story, “What
instance, did so thinking that this didn’t go as planned. if Marvel cut out the middleman
would be worth something someday, “When the Image creators, and sold directly to stores? It could
forgetting that, with so many millions especially Rob Liefeld, couldn’t meet take the money it was currently
of other copies, there was nothing their deadlines for the ‘Deathmate’ sinking into co-op advertising and
collectible about it. On top of that, crossover,” Sacks told THR, “it promotional events with ungrateful
even though DC killed Superman and triggered a massive cash-flow crisis distributors and invest instead in a
broke Batman’s back, both heroes that crushed the industry.” team of field representatives, each
quickly returned, which only served to Well, that, and the fact that one of of them unwaveringly committed
turn regular readers jaded and cynical. the two major publishers declared and dedicated to Marvel policies and
Why pay attention to the big stuff, they bankruptcy and almost went out of product. … Meanwhile, the marketing
asked, if nothing stuck? Why did it business. Marvel had gone public department developed an initiative for
even matter? in 1991 and Wall Street had been an in-house mail-order venture, which

76 | H i s t o r y o f C o m i c s
would bypass not only distributors but
retailers as well.”
As one might imagine, that only
angered those same distributors
and retailers, already paranoid
about sagging sales and an unstable
market. The resulting rift made things
worse, and Marvel’s already low sales
plummeted. In-house, marketing
took over for editorial, and a “Heroes
Reborn” event farmed out the writing
and drawing of all titles aside from
X-Men and Spider-Man to the studios
of Liefeld and his Image cohort Jim
Lee. The event was disjointed and
went through various writers and
artists, and it ultimately flopped, along
with the company itself.
After Marvel filed for bankruptcy, it
was taken over by Israeli businessmen
Ike Perlmutter and Avi Arad who
refocused the company to its original
purpose of making comics. Things
got back on the right track just as
the rest of the industry dusted itself
off and forgot about pandering to
speculators, focusing instead on
doing what made them successful
in the first place: telling interesting THE DARK KNIGHT RISES BROUGHT TO LIFE THE FAMOUS SCENE
stories. Ironically, Image Comics FROM “KNIGHTFALL” WHERE BANE BREAKS BATMAN’S BACK.
proved to be a big part of that.

LEFT TO RIGHT: A SPECIAL HOLOGRAPHIC COVER OF FANTASTIC FOUR HAD A HIGHER PRICE,
AN X-MEN RELAUNCH THAT ISN’T WORTH MILLIONS, AND BANE BREAKS THE BAT IN “KNIGHTFALL.”

77
THEIR WAY

Some of Marvel’s biggest

stars wanted more freedom,
so they made their own
 FROM LEFT TO RIGHT: IMAGE COMICS FOUNDERS JIM LEE, ROB LIEFELD AND TODD MCFARLANE. FAR LEFT: AN EARLY ISSUE OF YOUNGBLOOD.

t was 1991, and Jim Lee, Todd Comics Beat in 2017. “At the time, in an interview. “I was always going
McFarlane and Rob Liefeld when I’m in the middle of X-Force, I ‘hey, what happens if you do this?’
were stars at Marvel. Lee was thought that I could either do ten So, you know that attitude ultimately
working on an X-Men book more years of X-Force or I could make led to one of the reasons why I helped
and McFarlane had been content for myself.” join, create, and co-found Image
handed Spider-Man to write That got him thinking, and he Comics with my other partners. It was
and draw. Lee’s power at the made a decision that he wanted to because I was doing some of that at
publisher was strong enough protect himself even more. “From Marvel with Spider-Man and bending
that when he had creative now on, I’m going to have a giant the rules.”
issues with legendary X-Men writer equity. Working at Marvel or DC, So, in December 1991, the three of
Chris Claremont, it was Claremont you are the minority and they are the them told Marvel that the company
who got the boot. The guy who had majority. It doesn’t make them bad, it didn’t pay well enough, that creators
almost single-handedly turned the is just part of the deal. I didn’t feel like were not being taken care of, and
X-Men into Marvel’s flagship super I followed up X-Force with anything that they were going off to create and
team was pushed aside because a less than something I create.” own their own stuff. Soon, they were
talented star artist couldn’t work This attitude was one the three of joined by four other creators, Erik
with him. them shared. Creators’ rights were not Larsen, Jim Valentino, Marc Silvestri,
Meanwhile, McFarlane was selling something that either of the major and Whilce Portacio (though Portacio
millions of issues of Spider-Man, and publishers paid much attention to, as didn’t last long and left the company
Liefeld had taken over New Mutants their focus was on the characters they almost immediately after it was
and X-Force and turned them both owned, and it was up to these artists founded due to his sister’s illness).
into bestsellers. Liefeld was creating to come in and create within the The new company would work with
all kinds of new characters for the frameworks that had been established small indie publisher Malibu Comics
titles and felt good about the contract decades before. For this new group of for production and distribution, and
he’d signed with Marvel to do so. celebrity writers and artists, that was while each creator would have their
“I looked over the deal that they no longer good enough. own studio, the umbrella company
had for new characters and I thought, “I was a kid that literally colored covering them all would be called
‘man, if a couple of these characters outside the lines where everybody Image Comics.
hit it big, I’m looking good, this is else was adhering,” McFarlane told Just to reiterate, McFarlane’s first
a good deal,’” he told the website comic book publisher Ted Adams issue of Spider-Man in 1990 had set

79
THEIR WAY

a record with 2.35 million copies

sold. A year later, Liefeld’s first issue
of X-Force more than doubled that,
selling 5 million. Two months later,
Lee’s first issue of X-Men cleared
8.1 million. The creative minds
behind the three highest-selling
comic books of all time were now
doing their own thing.
Clearly they had the talent; the trick
was coming up with new characters
and stories completely from scratch.
Liefeld was the first out of the gate
with his book Youngblood, while the
others initially scuffled to get their own
titles out and into stores.
“I live in facts. I don’t live in wishful
thinking. The fact is, that was one
of the reasons why I was so bold and
able to shoot out of a rocket while
everyone else was so indecisive,”
Liefeld told Comics Beat. “I have
said this several times … but there
is a reason why Youngblood was
alone in solicitations for several
months because there was so much
uncertainty on the other guys’ parts.”
Liefeld’s confidence not-
withstanding, the others soon
WITCHBLADE HAS BEEN ADAPTED INTO A TV SERIES followed suit, and as he told Comics
AS WELL AS AN ANIME AND A MANGA NOVEL. Beat, “Then Spawn came along. We
were off to the races then.”
McFarlane’s Spawn, which is now
the longest-running creator-owned
comic book in history, with over 300
issues and counting, was an instant
hit and remains one of the best-
known characters ever to come out of
an independent publisher. The sales
of both Youngblood and Spawn were
outstanding, and soon everyone was
in on it.
“The first year of Image titles,”
Liefeld recalled to Comics Beat, “we
were all trying to do outdo each other.
I think they are ridiculously fun and
exciting comics books because we
were having a good time. Controlling
your own destiny does that to you.”
Valentino remembers it a bit
differently, telling the website Sequart
Organization in 2012, “As far as
ON THE EVE OF THE 300TH ISSUE OF SPAWN, MCFARLANE SAID THAT HE HAS THE LAST
competition goes, there is none that
ISSUE OF THE SERIES IN MIND BUT HOPES HE DOESN’T HAVE TO WRITE IT FOR A LONG TIME.
I’m personally aware of. In fact, I
believe one of the things that has kept

80 | H i s t o r y o f C o m i c s
us together for 20 years is the fact
that we don’t compete and are fully
autonomous, one from the other.”
Well, not all of them stayed
together, as Liefeld either quit or
was asked to leave in 1996, but that’s
jumping ahead. The first year saw
Liefeld’s Youngblood, McFarlane’s
Spawn, Lee’s WildC. A.T.s and
Larsen’s Savage Dragon, which is
also still in print, with issue #265
out in summer of 2023. Valentino’s
ShadowHawk and Silvestri’s
Cyberforce also debuted that year.
The structure they had put in place
may have fostered competition, but it
also fostered creativity. Each creator
had their own studio, all fitting under
the Image umbrella. McFarlane had
Todd McFarlane Productions, Lee
had Wildstorm Productions, Larsen
had Highbrow Entertainment,
Valentino had Shadowline, Silvestri
had Top Cow Productions, and
Liefeld had Extreme Studios. Each
company put out their own work and IMAGE TITLES LIKE THE WALKING DEAD, WANTED AND WILDC.A.T.S HAVE
ended up hiring more artists and HUGE FAN BASES AND HAVE BEEN ADAPTED INTO OTHER MEDIUMS.
writers to work for them. That’s how
Liefeld and Lee ended up running
a good chunk of Marvel’s line later
in the decade, while also creating In the years since, Liefeld
even more titles and allowing their returned in 2007, and writer Robert
personal studios to become more Kirkman joined the company after
valuable. writing Larsen’s Superpatriot.
“A part of Image Comics was He would go on to create The
that we can own our creations,” Lee
told the website Album in 2010.
Walking Dead and Invincible and
became a partner in the company THE GREATEST,
“As I envisioned a larger universe,
all the characters would exist in it,
in 2008. Liefeld’s former employee
Eric Stephenson eventually took THICKEST AND
thus necessitating a studio where
I could work with more creators to
over as publisher. Dozens and
dozens of other titles have come HIGHEST WALL
expand upon that vision. But in the
same time, it also allowed me the
from the label, many of them
going on to become movies or TV
THAT I THINK
opportunity of hiring a lot of young shows. Titles like The Old Guard,
ALL OF US WILL
EVER RUN INTO
new artists and training them. That Wanted, Wynonna Earp, Outcast,
was really gratifying.” Witchblade and Powers have all

IS THE WALL
By 1993, the company was doing made the jump from page to screen.
well enough that it broke off from Thirty years after making its

OF THE
Malibu and published all its own debut, Image remains the third
work, but soon, Liefeld was gone, biggest comic book publisher in
and in 1998, so was Lee, as he sold
Windstorm and all its characters
the industry, providing a consistent
place for independent, creator- STATUS QUO.”
and properties to DC Comics, where owned material. New creators, new
Lee would eventually become co- characters, new titles—all these IMAGE COMICS CO-FOUNDER
publisher. years later, it’s all still catnip for fans. TODD MCFARLANE TO TED ADAMS

81
GAIL POWER

WRITER GAIL SIMONE

Gail Simone pointed out the industry’s abysmal treatment of the ladies—and went on to change it

ometimes, we Alexandra DeWitt and stuffed her in

don’t even realize a refrigerator to be discovered by her
something is a hero lover. Seeing a pattern, Simone
problem until it’s and others put together a list of
pointed out to us. fictional female characters who had
The mistreatment been “killed, maimed or depowered,”
of women in comics especially in ways that treated them as
was out in the open nothing more than a device to further
for decades, and yet, the male character’s story.
maybe because of that, it was not Years before the Manic Pixie Dream
something many readers necessarily Girl was a thing—a term coined by
noticed—especially not male readers, film critic Nathan Rabin, describing
who were of course the vast majority a character who “exists solely in the
of the comic book readership for fevered imaginations of sensitive
many, many years. writer-directors to teach broodingly
It took Gail Simone—a former soulful young men to embrace
GREEN LANTERN VOL. 3 #54 SAW hairdresser from Oregon—to call life and its infinite mysteries and
KYLE’S GIRLFRIEND “FRIDGED.” attention to this issue, which she adventures”—Women in Refrigerators
began doing in 1999 when she called out a tired and offensive trope
launched the website Women in that desperately needed attention
Refrigerators, or WiR. On the site, she paid to it.
pointed out this ongoing misogyny in “The point was to ask a question,”
the pages of comics, taking the name Simone told the website Comics
of the site from the fate of Green Alliance in 2014. “‘Why are all these
Lantern Kyle Rayner’s girlfriend. In long-running female characters
a 1994 story, written by Ron Marz, suddenly meeting these horrible
the villainous Major Force killed fates?’ And I didn’t know the answer,

82 | H i s t o r y o f C o m i c s
 BARBARA GORDON IS PARALYZED IN
THE KILLING JOKE AS A PLOT DEVICE.

IN A 2016 ADAPTATION OF THE KILLING JOKE, PRODUCER BRUCE TIMM TRIED TO GIVE
BATGIRL A HEFTIER ROLE, BUT A SEX SCENE WITH BATMAN WAS NOT THE BEST WAY.

Gordon aka Batgirl’s getting shot creators, writing characters as varied

by the Joker and paralyzed from as the Birds of Prey and the Punisher
SUPERGIRL DIDN’T SURVIVE THE the waist down (she noted Batman and serving as one of Wonder Woman’s
“CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS.” also broke his back but was back to longest and most celebrated writers.
bat-fighting shape within a year); On top of that, a wave of top female
to the torturing, sterilization, and talent was welcomed into the industry
depowering of Black Canary; the because of her. What’s more, a new
so I asked as many people in the rape, torture, enslavement, and twice- mandate could be seen in the way
industry as I could find. Some argued forced marriage of Starfire; the death female characters were treated. Sure,
the question, some agreed, but every of Supergirl; and dozens more. Here, there remain misogynists who refuse
one of them knew exactly what I was Simone and her fellow contributors to cater to what they see as woke
asking about immediately. were saying, was hard evidence of nonsense, but the truth is that the
“At the time, you know, female how an entire industry treated its entire industry is far better off for the
readership was low, female con female characters—as plot devices, or realization and the fair treatment of
attendance at comic cons was low, afterthoughts, or chattel. the women in their stories. Not only
morale for female readers was low. “I never expected WiR to be that, but the number of female readers
And I kept seeing guys ask, ‘Why anything,” Simone continued. “I was has increased exponentially as well.
don’t women read comics?’ And happy to be just an anonymous poster “It’s odd how it’s lived on,” Simone
for me, it felt [like] there was a on various message boards. But it continued. “I have heard it numerous
connection between that and the fact immediately became this massive times in Hollywood, I’ve heard it in
that if you loved female superheroes, thing that everyone was talking big editorial meetings, [and] often
you had this endless parade of stories about. It was in national newspapers; the people using it have no idea I
where the women were killed or Harper’s Bazaar did a story on it. It coined the phrase.”
depowered, and they were never the just became huge.” It may have started as simply
focus of the story.” It’s hard to argue with the reaction pointing out an injustice, but it
The list went into detail about to all this. And Simone didn’t just became a call to arms, and brought
every injustice committed against point out the problems; she ended the industry to some form of
female characters, including Barbara up becoming one of comics’ foremost enlightenment in the process.

83
New century, new industry. The list is long and part of the zeitgeist without the
Comics were recovering from distinguished—names like Brian success of Sam Raimi’s Spider-
the Dark Age that almost killed K. Vaughan, Mark Millar, Matt Man trilogy, Bryan Singer’s X-Men
it, while also offering readers Fraction, Kelly Sue DeConnick, films, Christopher Nolan’s Dark
fresh takes on old characters. Jeff Lemire, Robert Kirkman, Knight trilogy and of course
Brian Michael Bendis’ Ultimate Fiona Staples, Geoff Johns and the juggernaut of the Marvel
Spider-Man debuted in 2000 and Pia Guerra—and most got their Cinematic Universe, led by CEO
reimagined Peter Parker for a start in indie comics. These new Kevin Feige. Previously those
new generation. That set a tone voices brought a different level of kinds of movies were handled by
that was followed by legions of cool to comic books and moved journeyman hacks; now it was top-
other creators, some of whom them further into the mainstream. tier talent at the reins. The movies
had gotten their start in the Movies helped that plenty, as it’s attracted oodles more readers,
1990s, but all of whom came into impossible to imagine the comics broadening the types of stories
their own in a new millennium. industry becoming such a large told as well as the audience.
TODAY’S HEROES

Social media and diverse voices bring some freshness to familiar stories

The Dark Knight went back to his roots

in the 2016 Batman “Rebirth.”

86 | H i s t o r y o f C o m i c s
 MARVEL’S “CIVIL WAR” SERIES HELPED ESTABLISH
t would be hard to come up NUANCES OF TONY STARK THAT CARRIED INTO THE MCU.
with a single theme that truly
captures the comic book
industry since 2000, but if
forced, a good choice would
be “rebirth.” In a business
sense, the industry had to
recover from the collapse of
the 1990s, the so-called Dark
Age of comics, and both the major
publishing houses and the indies all
revamped their operations to prevent
another recurrence of the events of a
few years before.
There were also two line-wide
reboots for DC—one of them literally
called “Rebirth”—as well as a partial
reboot and two more comprehensive
ones from Marvel, a whole series of
event comics meant to shake up the
lines in question, and the deaths of
a number of popular characters, all
of whom eventually came back (as
comics superheroes are wont to do).
After the 1992 “Death of Superman”
storyline and the quick reincarnation
of the Man of Steel, such occurrences
were treated with less deference, as
fans all knew it was only a matter of
time before the killed-off characters
returned to life.
Batman died in the pages of
“Final Crisis,” but it was no big deal,
because he soon returned (after Dick
Grayson and the whole Bat-family
fought to take over the mantle in
“Battle for the Cowl”). Captain wrote just about every major hero
America died in the pages of “Civil in the Marvel Universe, had Clark
War,” but that was no big deal, either, Kent reveal to the world that he’s
because he also made a speedy Superman in Justice League #59.
recovery. Bruce Banner aka The “These conceits or cliches that follow
THE 2006 MINISERIES
Incredible Hulk, Wonder Woman, a certain character are questioned at
Wolverine—all were killed off, only every level,” Bendis told the website
to return. Comic Book Resources in 2020. “So
In 2022, Doctor Strange was when you get to a level where you can
murdered, but by 2023, he was back To some extent, what goes around actually affect change on the character,
spell casting. Likewise, at DC, the in the comics world comes around. you ask the question again, and you
Justice League was killed trying to Stories are not repeated, but tropes really take a hard look at the world ... it
save the multiverse (again). Surprise! are, events come and go, different was really looking at this thing in the
They were alive in another dimension, heroes come to the fore, and fans middle of a book that actually didn’t
and most of the heroes made it back, react accordingly. make a lot of sense anymore.”
after their replacements, including a In a 2020 storyline, Brian Michael Outing Clark Kent may have made
new team of Titans, battled in their Bendis, who had become a star sense then, but in 2023, as part of the
place during another line-wide event, first writing indie comics and then “Dawn of the DCU,” the Super family’s
known as “Dark Crisis.” spending years at Marvel, where he secret identities were restored.

87
TODAY’S HEROES

Still, it’s a good way to talk about them tick. Stories deconstructing a villain, and Captain America would
the last two decades as a whole. After why these characters were heroes die,” former Marvel Editor-in-Chief
more than 60 years of stories, new became the norm, and they often left Joe Quesada recalled to Comic Book
writers and artists began taking a the characters in a place unfamiliar Resources in 2016. “And, ultimately,
fresh look at the characters they to fans. This could be good or bad, those kinds of stories helped by
loved, and with whom they had depending on one’s perspective, but shaking things up and making
grown up, and examined what made there were positives. Take Marvel’s people worry. Iron Man wasn’t a
2006 mega-series, “Civil War.” household name, and suddenly you
The storyline, as it was in the movie had this character that had people
Captain America: Civil War, pitted questioning his ethics and morality.
Tony Stark’s Iron Man against Steve And before you knew it, our writers
Rogers’ Captain America. Stark felt of all our other books found Tony
that heroes should register with the Stark so fascinating that he ended
government; Rogers was adamant up appearing in every Marvel comic
that this was the first step to being just because his character was so rich
controlled and forfeiting one’s at that point, because you gave him
freedom. At the end of the arc, Cap some gravitas, whether you agreed
BUCKY RETURNS IN
is assassinated, and while he soon with him or not. And then the death
“THE WINTER SOLIDER.”
returned, the point was that things had of Captain America brought upon us
changed. While some fans felt that this the idea of Winter Soldier, thanks to
change was for the worse, one absolute [writer] Ed Brubaker, and it actually
positive was the deepening of Tony elevated Cap.”
Stark as a character. Both ended up translating to the
“We did something called ‘Civil big screen, of course, contributing
War,’ where Tony Stark is perceived as to the popular perception of

IT WON’T BE [THAT] MILES IS SPIDER-MAN WITH

AN ASTERISK OR SOME KIND OF ADJECTIVE…
HE IS GOING TO BE SPIDER-MAN—JUST SPIDER-MAN.”
BRIAN MICHAEL BENDIS TO NPR ON CREATING MILES MORALES

SAMUEL L. JACKSON, SEBASTIAN STAN, CHRIS EVANS AND SCARLETT

JOHANSSON IN THE MCU’S CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER.

88 | H i s t o r y o f C o m i c s
superheroes that has emerged
between the page and the screen
(for more on that, see page 94). But
Quesada’s point also references the
increased power that fans have found
in the age of social media and their
new ability to have a more direct
contact with the publishers and
creators who are telling the stories of
their favorite heroes.
“Once Cap came back and Bucky PATTY JENKINS’ 2017 WONDER WOMAN STARRING GAL GADOT RENEWED
became Winter Soldier again, it INTEREST IN THE AMAZON. IN THE COMICS SHE GOT MULTIPLE REBOOTS.
helped,” Quesada continued to CBR.
“And that’s where our fans are so
important. Like I said before, they’re
the Johnny Appleseeds. They spread had long been proud of the fact the Marvel Universe and keeping
the word about this stuff, and when that, unlike DC, Marvel had never things fresh,” Quesada told Comics
the movie comes out, there’s an restarted or rethought its entire line Alliance in 2012. “It was really no
immediate recognition. And even of books—was in 2012’s “Marvel Now” more than that: a new generation of
for the layperson. If they don’t know event. In that, the end of an “Avengers heroes and a new generation of the
who or what a Winter Soldier is, vs. X-Men” storyline, more than two way that Marvel feels and the way
they probably have someone in their dozen new titles were introduced, that we push our stories and how we
life who says, ‘Oh, that is…’ and they intending to change the publishing push our covers and how we deliver
explain it to them. Or they get that format and attract new readers. these stories with the increased
there’s a buzz online, and they’re “What really precipitated it for [connection between] the digital
immediately intrigued.” us was, again, where our characters world and our publishing world.”
The closest Marvel had come to were going, where the story was Three years later, as a new “Secret
any kind of reboot—the publisher heading—turning a new page on Wars” came and went, the entire

89
TODAY’S HEROES

KAMALA KAHN GOT

A SOLO TITLE IN 2014.

IMAN VELLANI PLAYS KAMALA, AKA MS. MARVEL, IN THE HERO’S TITULAR DISNEY+ SERIES.
SHE’LL REPRISE THE ROLE ALONGSIDE BRIE LARSON’S CAROL DANVERS IN THE MARVELS THIS NOVEMBER.

Marvel Universe “came to an end,” eyebrows, the way we did when we “That’s the goal, to challenge and take
only to be relaunched as “All-New, unveiled Kamala Khan as the new people out of their comfort zone and
All-Different Marvel.” In this new Ms. Marvel or the female Thor, have some fun.”
rollout, more than 60 titles were or an African-American Captain In 2018, Marvel would relaunch
released, each of them starting at America, or more recently, the again, with an event called “Fresh
issue #1. all-female Avengers team,” then- Start,” though by that point, the bloom
“Our goal is to knock readers Marvel Editor-in-Chief Axel Alonso was slightly off the proverbial rose.
back onto their heels and raise some told Entertainment Weekly in 2015. DC Comics had its own shakeup
in 2011, after a miniseries called
“Flashpoint” served as a line-wide
reboot. In the story, The Flash goes
back in time to stop his mother’s
murder, but when he returns to his
present, everything has changed.
This then reset everything back to
zero in an even more extreme way
than had been used 26 years before
with “Crisis on Infinite Earths.”
Unlike that reboot, this one set
every single title back to issue #1
(though through the years, various
titles would end up with cumulative
numbers, like Action Comics and
Detective Comics both reaching issue
#1000, and The Flash and Wonder
Woman both getting to #750) and
reimagined every hero DC had, right
IN 2013, THE DC ANIMATED UNIVERSE TACKLED “THE FLASHPOINT PARADOX,” down to new costumes and, in some
WHILE THE FANTASTIC FOUR GOT THEIR ACCLAIMED REFRESH #1 IN 2021. cases, new powers and abilities.
Known as “The New 52,” it consisted
of 52 titles that took the DC Universe

90 | H i s t o r y o f C o m i c s
to a place of origin, with each hero readers knew and loved, and on the
emerging in their own way. other, it was perhaps going to be too
Dan Didio was DC’s editor-in- familiar, too rote, too pat.
chief at the time, as he would be “Ultimately, something was going
five years later with the “Rebirth” to have to change or something was
reboot, and he told MTV in 2011 going to have to evolve,” Didio told the
that there were five things that a website GamesRadar in 2020, after
publisher needed to do to keep a line he had left DC. “If you look at comics,
alive. There was strengthening the now you have an event a quarter, not
base of one’s audience, establishing even every year or every few years.
storytelling diversity across the Now you got yourself in a cycle. The
line, improving the overall visual problem is, you’re constantly in a
storytelling, reaching as many people cycle now, and you can’t get off that
as possible, and, perhaps most treadmill, because you’re constantly
importantly, maintaining a certain trying to top yourself or trying to
level of professionalism. “You know, maintain artificial highs.”
we’ve all gotten very… I don’t want Jim Lee, who was DC’s co-
to say lazy, but we’ve gotten soft in publisher for both events, talked
how we met schedules and how we about “Rebirth” at WonderCon in
deliver our product. We broke our 2016, saying: “This time around
contract with our fans. We were out we’re really focusing on story and
“THE NEW 52” RELAUNCHED THE JLA;
there saying we would be monthly, character and making sure that
FANS WERE SOMEWHAT MEH.
and to not be monthly… They lose we’re still sticking with ‘The New
faith in us, and we’ve got to rebuild 52,’ but making sure that we haven’t
that faith, and rebuild that story with jettisoned things from the past that
them again. And rebuild the sense of we might have thrown out with the
periodic nature, because that’s what bathwater initially. [We have] put
comics are built on! It’s a monthly an enormous amount of time in with
business, and that means you have to all the different writers of the books
be out monthly.” and all the editors to make sure they
That’s a lot to achieve, even taking understand the characters and the
them one at a time, but the decision premises. We actually have charted
was made: “Let’s go at ’em all at out six months to a year of each
once. Rethink the way we do our title, so in many ways there’s a more
business, rethink the way we are. coherent vision of the universe going
Rethink our characters, and let’s go
out there and attack it… And let’s go
forward as we launch with ‘Rebirth’
and go forward.” “WE’RE NOT
make some magic!”
The line’s success was mixed,
“Rebirth” was undoubtedly a bigger
success than “The New 52,” and more THROWING
with some titles only lasting a few
issues and others allowing lesser-
than six years later, it’s still going
strong, with new writers and artists ANYTHING AWAY.
known characters to find new
audiences, and readers mostly
picking up where previous ones left
off and continuing to revitalize the
LIKE WE’RE
thinking that it was sort of… fine. characters in an ongoing way.
NOT BREAKING
ANYTHING,
When the announcement came To that end, just as a new
five years later that yet another generation of writers and artists

WE’RE JUST
reboot was happening, and that it had become stars in the 1990s, even
would essentially use “The New 52” more of them became stars in the

BUILDING AT
as a jumping-off point, fans were 21st century. The proliferation of
somehow both hopeful and cynical. self-publishing allowed creators to
There were pros and cons to that
sea change, which were essentially
find audiences that were not available
to them previously. Bendis was a THIS POINT.”
the same: On the one hand, there perfect example, having first made
was a return to familiarity and the his name with indie crime books WRITER JOSHUA WILLIAMSON TO
characterizations of the heroes that before hooking up with Marvel. CBR ON DC’S “DAWN OF THE DCU”

91
TODAY’S HEROES

Other writers and artists also came

to the fore, like Mark Millar, Matt
Fraction, Kelly Sue DeConnick,
Robert Kirkman, G. Willow Wilson,
Ed Brubaker, Brian Azzarello, Pia
Guerra, Geoff Johns, Cliff Chiang,
Warren Ellis, John Cassaday, and the
list goes on for pages.
True, some of those creators first
debuted in the 1990s, but it was in
the new century that they achieved
the kind of stature where they could
actually change the industry with new
takes on old characters that literally
altered the way fans thought of them.
Case in point: Bendis and his take on
Spider-Man, which not only offered
a 21st century viewpoint of Peter
Parker, it also led to the introduction
of Miles Morales as a brand new,
half-Black, half-Latino Spider-Man.
Another example was Millar’s spin
on the Avengers, which was a direct
influence on what would become
the Marvel Cinematic Universe,
including the casting of Samuel L.
Jackson as Nick Fury. For decades,
Fury had been some nondescript
white guy, but Millar reimagined him
FANS LOVED MILES MORALES AS A NEW SPIDER-MAN.
in Jackson’s image.
HE NOW EXISTS ALONGSIDE PETER PARKER.
It wasn’t just the work these
creators did for the major
publishers that made a mark. Their
independent work is what really
stood out. Millar introduced his own
label of comics and characters he
called Millarworld in 2004, which
led to numerous adaptations to the
big and small screen and a sale to
Netflix in 2019 of a reported $30
million. Kirkman is behind a bevy of
creator-owned titles, most notably
The Walking Dead. Azzarello wrote
and co-created a series called 100
Bullets, which took a fresh look at
the crime noir drama. Ed Brubaker’s
Marvel work—he brought back
Bucky Buchanan as the Winter
Soldier—is not nearly as revered by
fans as the crime stories he writes
for Image Comics. DeConnick’s
Pretty Deadly and Bitch Planet are
THE WALKING DEAD INSPIRED THE ÜBER-SUCCESSFUL AMC SERIES OF
as beloved as her work on Captain
THE SAME NAME, WHICH IN TURN CREATED MORE READERS FOR THE COMICS.
Marvel, and her husband, Fraction,
has written hundreds of books for

92 | H i s t o r y o f C o m i c s
Marvel but has done nearly as much
creator-owned work for indie lines.
Perhaps the most successful of the
bunch is Vaughan, who has not just
written the X-Men, Captain America,
Batman, Superman, Green Lantern,
and Swamp Thing, he has also been
behind three of the most popular
and iconic indie books of the century.
There was Ex Machina, a unique
combination of sci-fi and politics
in which Mitchell Hundred, the
world’s only superhero, is the mayor
of New York City, and Saga, an epic
THE PRISON DRAMA BITCH PLANET MODERN HERO SAGA EX MACHINA
sci-fi/fantasy/space opera love story
which just published its 63rd issue in
spring of 2023 and is roughly halfway
through its run.
But his biggest hit, one of the biggest
indie hits of the century thus far, is
Y: The Last Man, a postapocalyptic
story in which every single male
animal on the planet is killed, but for
a single human named Yorick and his
Capuchin monkey, Ampersand. The
60-issue series, drawn by Guerra, is a
landmark in comic storytelling, to the
point where it is taught in colleges.
“I was barely out of college myself
when I started writing that book,”
Vaughan told Salon in 2019. “To think
that it’s on a syllabus somewhere is
extremely cool.”
The thing about this new breed
of creators is that they understood
the history of the medium, the trails
blazed by their predecessors, and
how extremely lucky they all were
to be able to ply their trade in an
age when there were so many more
opportunities than ever before.
Vaughan, for one, spoke of this to
Salon, saying: “At least in the world of
comics, I feel like I am the beneficiary
of generations of comic creators who
were wronged. They went through
that so that I do not have to. I have
gotten so many more rights as a
creator because of their sacrifices.”
More titles than ever means
wavering levels of quality, it’s true, but
it is also hard to argue that there is
more talent involved than ever before,
and that the industry is in exceedingly
Y: THE LAST MAN WON MYRIAD AWARDS, INCLUDING THE EISNER.
capable hands.
REIGN OF THE SUPERMEN

Everywhere you turn, you can feel the industry’s influence

94 | H i s t o r y o f C o m i c s
 LEFT: MCU STARS WINSTON DUKE AND CHRIS PRATT
MEET WITH FANS. RIGHT: MANY PEOPLE FEEL THE
t seems silly to think of it DARK KNIGHT TRILOGY STARRING CHRISTIAN BALE
now, when comic books UPPED THE GAME FOR COMIC BOOK FILMS.
are as inextricable a part
of pop culture and societal
awareness as any other form
of media, but there was a
time when it was not cool to
admit you read them. Whole
generations of fans would hide
their love of the medium, stashing
their Wednesday weeklies inside a
respectable book, and certainly never
admitting their hobby publicly.
Great Hera, how times change!
These days, it’s not just acceptable
to be a part of the comic book
community, it’s collegial. Fans
proudly wear their favorite hero’s
logo on a T-shirt just like they’re
supporting the local sports team.
You’re part of a group of people who
love this stuff as much as you do,
and are just as eager to talk about
it—and debate whether Superman
or The Flash would win in a footrace.
Thousands upon thousands of people
attend conventions like San Diego
Comic-Con, where the world’s biggest
stars take questions from costume-
clad fans about their upcoming films.
Large corporations go out of their

EVERY AGE
way to cater to you and your brethren, people up to a new reality: Comic
and the entire Hollywood system books, with or without superheroes,

HAS ITS
is now geared (to a fault, one could are not just a legitimate form of
argue) toward the genre, spending storytelling, they’re as capable of
billions of dollars on comic-themed
entertainment, knowing it will earn
great artistic achievement as any
other medium. It’s not for nothing MYTHS AND
them even more billions in return.
“I used to be embarrassed because
that an increasing number of prestige
films and television shows are LEGENDS. SO
I was just a comic book writer while
other people were building bridges
adapted from comic books.
Nick Barrucci, founder and CEO WHO KNOWS?
or going on to medical careers,” Stan
Lee famously said. “And then I began
of comic book publisher Dynamite
Entertainment told the website Little
SOMEDAY
to realize: Entertainment is one of White Lies in 2021: “Since their
SPIDEY MAY
BE AS LONG-
the most important things in people’s introduction, comics have enjoyed
lives. Without it, they might go off the periods of incredible popularity,

LIVED AS JACK
deep end. I feel that if you’re able to and the material they offer, via
entertain, you’re doing a good thing.” adaptation, has served as a backbone

THE GIANT
It wasn’t a sudden change that to popular culture. Never more so
brought us here, not one single than now, though. The explosion
moment or incident that magically
gave comics a certain cachet in the
is unprecedented and the source
material remains vibrant and ripe for KILLER!”
eyes of a larger portion of society. On discovery and collecting.”
the contrary, it was gradual, helped Obviously, it’s not just about the MARVEL CO-CREATOR
along by a series of events that woke comics themselves. It’s about the STAN LEE TO FANS

95
REIGN OF THE SUPERMEN

THE INDUSTRY HAS A HISTORY OF NOT CATERING TO FEMALE READERS,

BUT NEW STORIES APPEAL TO LADIES YOUNG AND OLD.

level of skill and talent brought to appeal. With the success of the movie,
bear on adaptations of those comics. Tony Stark’s popularity in the comics
For instance, in the 1990s, after increased exponentially, and that
Tim Burton left the Batman film spread across Marvel’s entire line.
franchise, the property was put in Getting people into comic shops
the hands of a director who was didn’t just help Marvel, either. DC
about spectacle instead of story. Joel Comics also reaped the benefit, as did
Schumacher was good at making the indie publishers that sprouted
something look good, with lots of beneath them like mushrooms. In the decades since Bechdel’s
flash, but depth was never really People found that, no matter their initial strips, as she has become a
his forte. Things got better with tastes, there were comics for them: guiding force and feminist icon in the
Christopher Nolan’s take on the not just superheroes, but literally comic book industry, more and more
Caped Crusader starting in 2005, any and every other genre. Crime, women have joined her on the front
but the work of Sam Raimi and romance, horror, science fiction and lines, taking advantage of previously
Bryan Singer—in the Spider-Man fantasy were represented, certainly, unavailable opportunities to tell
and X-Men series, respectively—had but there were also original graphic their stories.
already treated the superhero story novels that were focused on societal “I feel sort of funny about that
with a respect that had rarely been issues—feminism, racism, sexuality, whole thing because it wasn’t like I
seen previously. the list goes on—and it’s all but said, ‘This is the Bechdel Test, and
In 2008, the same year that Nolan’s unlimited in its scope. now you must follow it,’” Bechdel
second Bat film came out—the Oscar- Consider cartoonist Alison told the website Vulture in 2015. “It
winning and generally beloved The Bechdel. In 1985 in her comics strip somehow just got attached to me. I
Dark Knight—the Marvel Cinematic Dykes to Watch Out For, she coined the mean, I did write down the principles
Universe debuted with Jon Favreau’s “Bechdel Test,” which requires a movie in a cartoon, but this younger
Iron Man. That film took a lesser- to have two female characters appear generation of feminists and film-
known character, put him in the hands on-screen and talk about something watchers has adopted it in this way
of an indie filmmaker who was known other than a man. But of course that I think is pretty cool.”
for smaller, character-based stories, you’ve already heard of it because it’s That this is even a topic of
and starred a recovering addict who ubiquitous. It’s a testament to the conversation is not just a tribute to
was as known for his addiction as he power of the comic book medium that how far society has come, but more
was for his acting chops. Against the this notion became so well known, specifically to where comics have.
odds, it was a revelation. never mind that Bechdel’s graphic The influence goes so far beyond
That combination of character, novel memoir Fun Home was turned just superheroes and blockbuster
director, and star Robert Downey Jr. into a Broadway show that won the movies and television, to the kind of
helped to move the needle further Tony Award for best musical (as well as literature that previously could only
and cement the medium’s broader four others) in 2015. be found in specialty bookstores.
 Andrew Garfield tackled
web-head’s most famous comic
in The Amazing Spider-man 2.

Those stories now reach a far wider

audience thanks to the way the
medium has expanded over the last
two decades.
The simple fact of the matter is
that, after years of being treated like
a lower-class form of entertainment,
comics are now as much a part of the
conversation as anything else. With so AVENGERS COSPLAYERS AT SAN DIEGO COMIC-CON
much going on in society, and in the ARE READY FOR ACTION!
aftermath of a global pandemic, it’s
hard to fault anyone for whatever it
is they do to entertain themselves in
difficult times.
“Comics, like any art form, has
both its escapist and truth-telling
versions—ones that allow you to
seek solace from the world’s darker
moments, and others that grapple
with the world in ways more or less
allegorical,” Jeremy Dauber, author
of American Comics: A History, told
Columbia News in 2021. “Comics
have done that throughout American
history, up to this day.”
This day and, in what has become
more and more obvious, the next, IT’S THE GOD OF THUNDER, CAP AND THE MIGHTY THOR!
as well. OR JUST FANS HAVING FUN AT COMIC-CON.

97
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